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o

COSMOS:

SKETCH

or ▲

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE UNIVERSE.

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.

Vol. H.

yat^tr^g vera rtrum eu atque mqfetttu in tumUbtu mtemeiUiaJkU emrttp ai qmt» wtodo pmrtm ^fm
ac rum totam compUetatur ontmo.— Pliw. H. N. lib. tU. e. 1.

TRANSLATED UNDEH THE tfUFEBINTENSENCS Of

LIEUT..COL. EDWAED SABINE, E.A., Foe, Sec. E.S.

Sbixtb iBlrttimi.

LONDON:

p&zxm> vos

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN. AND LONGMANS,

rATxsirosTBa aoir ; axs

JOHN MURRAT, ALBEMARLE STREET.

1849.

s

rtfi^T^

CONTENTS.

^nMMMM«MMM«*«M«aM«^

\

INCITEMENTS TO THE STUDY OF NATUK&.

%

General remarks » * * • . • « 3

I. POBTIC BfiSCJUFTIONS OT NaTUBX.

By the Greeks 5

B7 the Bomans • • . 1ft

By the early Christians ...•.,,. 25
By the iaermans of the middle ages .•••«. 30
By the Indians ••-••••«. 87
By the Persians ••••••••. 40

BytheKns 42

By the Hebrews ••••...,.4S

By the Arabians ••••••...48

In modem literature :-^

Pante and Petrarch .•.•.,.. 60
Colombus •••....., 54

Camoens 5«j

Ercilla and Calderon 60

Shakspeare, Milton, and Thomson . . . . .61

Modem prose writers ftg

Travellers of the 14th and 15th centnrics . . <, .67
Modern travellers 0$

VI CONTENTS.

II. Landscape Painting.

In ancient Greece, Rome, and India . . • • • .74

Illuminated MSS. and mosaics .78

TheVanEycka 78

Titian 79

European painters of the 16th and 17th centuries . . .81

Characteristic representation of tropical scenery . . . .82

Characteristic aspect of nature in different zones . . . .87

Panoramas • ,, ,00

III. Culture of chabactebistic Exotic Plants.

InlQuence of well contrasted grouping . • • • ,92

On the laying out of parks and gardens . • • • • 96

HISTORY OF THE PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE

UNIVERSE.

Division into historic periods, or epochs of progress, in the

generalisation of physical views 101 to 116

First Epoch. — Knowledge of nature possessed by the
nations who in early times inhabited the coasts of the
Mediterranean, and the extension of that knowledge
by attempts at distant navigation towards the N. E.
(the Argonauts) ; towards the South (Ophir) ; and
towards the West (Colseus of Samos) . . . 117 to 148

Second Epoch. — Military expeditions of the Macedonians
under Alexander .the Great. Fusion of the Fiast
with the West under Greek dominion and influence.
Enlargement of the knowledge of nature possessed
by the Greeks consequent on these events . . 149 to 165

Third Epoch. — Increase of the knowledge of nature under
the Ptolemies. Alexandrian Institution. Tendency

1

CONTENTS. Vll

* of the period towards the generalisation of the yiewi
of nature, both in regard to the earth and to the
regions of space . ^ 166 to 177

Ponrth Epoch. — The Roman empire of the world. — ^In-
fluence on cosmical views of a great political onion of
countries. Progress of Geography through conmieroe
by land. Pliny's physical description of the nniverse.
The rise of ChristiAnity promotes the fieeling of the
unity of the human race , . . . • 178 to 200

Fifth Epoch. — Inyasion of the Arabians. Aptitude of this
portion of the Semitic race for intellectual cultivation.
Influence of a foreign element on the development of
European civilisation and culture. Attachment ol
the Arabians to the study of nature. Extension of
physical geography, and advances in astronomy and
in the mathematical sciences 201 to 229

Sixth Epoch. — Oceanic discoveries. Opening of the
Western hemisphera. Discoveries of the Scandina-
vians. Ck>lumbus. Sebastian Cabot. Yasco de Gama 230 to 800

Seventh Epoch. — Celestial discoveries consequent on the
invention of the telescope.— Progress of astronomy
and mathematics from Galileo and Kepler to Newton
and Leibnitz 801 to 852

Retrospective view of the epochs which have been con*
sidered. Wide and varied scope, and close natural
connection, of the scientific advances of modem times.
The history of the physical sciences gradually becomes
that of the Cosmos 853 to 859

NOTM . . , i. to cxxv.

Ikdex exzirii.toQzlu.

*^* See Notice in the next pa^e*

A notice is vppendsd hj M. ds Hukboldt at the dose of the
second ▼oluine of " Kosmoe/' stating^ that the first portion
of that vdnme, w. "On the Incitements to the Stady of
Nature,*' was printed in July 1846 ; and that the piintyig
of the second portion, m. "The History of the Physical
Contemplation of the TJrdveae,** was completed in the
month of Septemher 1847.

From page 100 to the oondnsion of the text, the
Translation, in its progress through the press, has had the
adrantage of being compared with the original by the
Ghxtaijeb Bunsen.

February 21, 184b.

COSMOS:

A PHYSICAL DESCEIPTION OF THI3 UNIVEBSB.

INCITEMENTS TO THE STUDY OF NATTJEB.

Action of the external world on the imaginatiye faculty, and tlw
reflected image produced— Poetic descriptions of nature— -Land-
scape painting — Cultivation of those exotic plants which determine
the characteristio aspect of the vegetation in the oountnes to which
they belong.

We now pass from the domain of objects to that of sensa-
tions. The principal results of observation^ in the form in
which^ stripped of all additions derived from the imagi-
nation^ they belong to a pure scientific description
of nature^ have been presented in the preceding volume.
We have now to consider the impression which the image
received by the external senses produces on the feelings^
and on the poetic and imaginative faculties of mankind.
An inward world here opens to the view, into which we desire
to penetrate; not, however, for the purpose of investigating —
as would be required if the philosophy of art were our aim-—

4 INCrrEMEKTS TO THE STUDY OF NATURE.

what in sestlietic performances belongs essentially to the
powers and dispositions of the mind, and what to the parti-
cular direction of the intellectual activity, — but that we may
trace the sources of that animated contemplation which
enhances a genuine enjoyment of nature, and discover the
particular causes which, in modem times especially^ have
80 powerfully promoted, through the medium of the imagi-
nation, a predilection for the study of nature, and for the
undertaking of distant voyages.

I have alluded, m the preceding volume, to three (^) kinds
of incitement more frequent in modem than in ancient
times ; 1st, the aesthetic treatment of natural scenery by vivid
and graphical descriptions of the vegetable and animal worlds
which is a very modem branch of Uterature ; 2d, landscape
painting, so far as it pourtrays the characteristic aspect of
vegetation; and, 3d, the more extended cultivation of tro*
pical plants, and the assemblage of contrasted exotic forms.
Each of these subjects might be historically treated and
investigated at some length ; but it appears to me better
suited to the spirit and object of my work, to unfold only a
few leading ideas relating to them, — ^to recal how differently
the contemplation of nature has acted on the intellect and
the feelings of different races of men, and at different periods
of time, — and to notice how, at epochs when there has been
a general cultivation ot the mental faculties, the severe pur-
suit of exact knowledge, and the more delicate workings of
the imagination, have tended to interpenetrate and blend
with each other. If we would describe the full majesty c^
nature, we must not dwell solely on her external phseno-
mena but we must also regard her in her reflected image —
at one time filling the visionary land of physical myths with

mENBRAL SE1CAJIX8. 5

gnoefbl phantoms, and at another devdopnig the noUe
^enns of imitative art.

I here limit myself to the eonnderation of incite-
meats to a scientific study of nature; and, in so doing, I
vonld recal the lessons of experience, which teQ us how
often impressions received by the senses from drcamstances
fleoningly accidental, have so acted on the youthful mind as
to determine the whole direction of the man's course through
life. Childish pleasure in the form of countries and of seas,
88 dehneated in maps (^) ; the desire to behold those southern
constellations which have never risen in our horizon (') ; the
flight of palms and of the cedars of Lebanon, figured in a
pictorial bible, may have implanted in the spirit the first
impulse to travels in distant lands. If I might have recourse
to my own experience, and say what awakened in me the
first beginnings of an inextinguishable longing to visit the
tropics, I should name George Forster's descriptions of the
islands of the Pacific — ^paintings, by Hodge, in the house
of Warren Hastings, in London, representing the banks of
flie Ganges — and a colossal dragon tree in an old tower of
the Botanic Garden at Berlin. These objects, which I here
cite as exemplifications taken from £eu^, belong respectively
to the tiiree classes above noticed, viz. to descriptions of
iBttore flowing from a mind inspired by her Contemplation,
to imitative art in landscape painting, and to the immediate
view of characteristic natural objects. Such incitements are,
however, only influential where general intellectual cultiva-
tion prevails, and when they address themselves to dispo-
fitions smted.to their reception, and in which a particular
conrse of mental development has heightened the suscepti-
Mity to natural impressions.

fl

INCITEMENTS TO THE STUDY OP NATURB.

L — Description of naturaL sceneiy, and the feelings associated there-
with at different times and among different races and nations.

It has often been said^ that if delight in nature were not
altogether unknown to the ancients^ yet that its expression
was more rare and less animated among them IJian in modem
times. Schiller^ (^) in his considerations on naive and
sentimental poetry, remarks, that ^^when we think of the
glorious scenery which surrounded the ancient Greeks, and
remember the free and constant intercourse with nature in
which their happier skies enabled them to live, as weU as
how much more accordant their manners, their habits of
feeling, and their modes of representation, were with the
simplicity of nature, of which their poetic works convey 90
true an impress, we cannot but remark with surprise how
few traces we find amongst them of the sentimental interest
with which we modems attach ourselves to natural scenes
and objects. In the description of these, the Greek is
indeed in the highest degree exact, fEdthfol, and drcumstan-
tial, but without exhibiting more warmth of sympathy than
in treating of a garment, a shield, or of a suit of armour.
Nature appears to interest his understandmg rather than
his feelings ; he does not cling to her with intimate affection
and sweet melancholy, as do the modems.'' Much as there
is that is true and excellent in these remarks, they are far

DBSCSIPTIONS OF NATUKAL SCBNXRT, 7

from being applicable to all anfiquity, e^en in the sense ordi-
narily attached to the tenn ; I cannot, moreover^ but regard as
far too limited^ the restriction of antiquity (as opposed to
modem times)^ eKclusively to the Greeks and Bomans : a
profound feeling of nature speaks forth in the earliest poetry
of the Hebrews and of the Indians; — in nations, therefore,
of very different descent, Semitic, and Indo-Germanic*

We can only infer the feeling with which the ancients
regarded nature from the portions of its expression which
have reached us in the remains of their literature; we
most therefore seek for such passages the more diligently,
wd pronounce upon them the more circumspec%, as they
present themselves but sparingly in the two great forms of
Bpical and lyrical poetry. In Hellenic poetry, at that floweay
season of the life of mankind, we find, indeed, the t^iderest
expression of the love and admiration of nature mingling with
the poetic representation of human passion, in actions taken
4om legendary history; but specific descriptions of natural
scenes or objects appear only as subordinate ; for in Grecian
^ all is made to concenter within the sphere of human life
«id feeling.

The description of nature in her manifold diversity, as ft
^inct branch of poetic literature, was altogether foreign to
the ideas of the Greeks. With them the landscape is
always the mere background of a picture, in the foreground
of which human figures are moving. Passion breaking
forth in action rivetted their attention almost exclusively;
^ agitation of politics, and a life passed chiefly in public.
Withdrew men's minds jfrom enthusiastic absorption in the
tranquil pursuit of nature. Physical phsenomena were always
''^erred to man (*) by supposed relations or resemblances!

8 DESCRIPTIONS 07 NATUBAL SCENEBT

either of external form or of inward spirit. It was ahnosk
exclusivelj by such applications that the consideration of
natoie was thought worthy of a place in poetry in the form
of comparisons or similitudes^ which often present small
detached pictures^ full of objective vividness and truth.

At Delphi, paeans to spring (^) were sung — ^probably to
express men^s joy that the privations and discomforts of
winter were past. A natural description of winter has been
interwoven (may it not be by a later Ionian rhapsodistf)
withtiie ''Works and Days'^ of Hesiod(7). This poem^
foil of a noble simplicilT; but purely didactic in ite form^
gives advice respecting agriculture^ and directions for
different kinds of work and profitable employment, together
with ethical exhortations to a blameless life. Its tone rises
to a more lyrical character when the poet clothes the miseriefi
of mankind, or the fine allegorical mythus of Epimetheos
and Pandora, with an anthropomorphic garb. In Hesiod's
Theogony, which is composed of varioiw ancient and disa-
milar elements, we find repeatedly (as, for example, in the
enumeration of the Nereides (^) ), natural descriptions veQed
under the significant names of mythic personages. In Ito
Boeotian bardic school, and generally in sJl ancient Greek
poetry, the phsenomena of the external world are introduced
only by personification under human forms.

But if it be true, as we have remarked, that natural
diescriptions, whether of the richness and luxuriance of
southern vegetation, or the portraiture in fresh and vivid
colours of the habits of animals, have only become a distinct
branch of literature in very modem times, it was not that
sensibility to the beauiy of nature was absent (»), where the
perception of beauty was so intense,— -or the animated expres-

BT THB OBMMKB. 9

sion of a oontemplatiye poetic spirit wantingy where the
ereative power of the Hellexuc mind produced inimitaUe
master works in poetry and in the plastic arts. The defi*
denqr which appears to our modem ideas in this department
of aatiquily^ betokens not so much a want of sensibility, as
the absence of a prevailing impulse to disclose in words the
feeling of natoral beaatjr* Directed less to the inanimate
world of phsenomena than to that of human acticm, and of
the internal spontaneous emotions, the earliest and the
noblest devdopments of the poetic spirit were epical and
IjriicaL These were forms in which natural descriptions
could only hold a subordinate, and^ as it were, an accidental
place, and could not appear as distinct productions of the
imagination. As the influence of antiquity gradually de«
dined, and as its blossoms faded, the rhetorical spirit shewed

itself in descriptive as well as in didactic poetry; and the
latter, which, in its earlier philosophical and semi-priestly
character, had been severe, grand, and unadorned, as in
Umpedocles' ^^Poem of Nature,'' gradually lost its early
simple dignity.

I may be permitted to illustrate these general observations

by a few particular instances. Conformably to the character

of the Epos, natural scenes and images, however charming,

appear in the Homeric songs always as mere incidental

adjimcts. " The shepherd rejoices in the calm of night,

when the winds are still; in the pure ether, and in the

hnght stars shining in the vault of heaven; he hears from

^ the rushing of the suddenly-swollen forest torrent,

l^eaimg down earth and trunks of uprooted oaks'' {^^). The

fine description of the sylvan loneliness of Parnassus, and

of its daik, thickly-wooded rocky valleys, contrasts with the

lO DESCEIPnONB OF KATUSAX SCENEBT

smiling pictures of the many-foTintamed poplar groves of
the Phseacian Islands, and especially with the land of the
Cyclops, ''where swelling meads of rich waving grass sur-
round the hills of undressed vines" (i^). Pindar, in a vernal
dithyramhus recited at Athens, sings *' the earth covered
with new flowers, what time in Argive Nemea the first
opening shoot of the pahn announces the approach of balmy
spring;'' he sings of Etna, '' the pillar of heaven, the nurse
of enduring snows;'' but he quickly hastens to turn from
the awful form of inanimate nature, to celebrate Hiero of
Syracuse, and the Greeks' victorious combats with the
powerful Persian nation.

Let us not forget that Grecian sceneiy possesses the
peculiar charm of blended and intermingled land and sea;
the breaking waves and changing brightness of the resound-
ing ocean, amidst shores adorned with vegetation, or pictu-
resque cliffs richly tinged with aerial hues. Whilst to other
nations the different features and the different pursuits
belonging to the sea and to the land appeared separate and
distinct, the Greeks, not only of the islands, but also of
almost all the southern portion of the mamland, enjoyed the
continual presence of the greater variety and richness, as
well as of the higher character of beauty, given by the con-
tact and mutual influence of the two elements. How can
we imagine that a race so happily organised by nature, and
whose perception of beauty was so intense, should have been
unmoved by the aspect of the wood-crowned cliffs of the
deeply-indented shores of the Mediterranean, the varied
distribution of vegetable forms, and, spread over all, the
added charms dependent on atmospheric influences, varying
by a silent interchange with the varying surfaces of land

BT THE GREEKS. 11

imd sea, of monntain and of plain^ as well as with the
varying hours and seasons? Or how^ in the age when the
poetic tendency was highest, can emotions of the mind thus
awakened through the senses have failed to resolve them-
selves into ideal contemplation ? The Greeks, we know,
imagined the vegetable world connected by a thousand
mythical relations with the heroes and the gods : avenging
chastisement followed injury to the sacred trees or plants.
But while trees and flowers were animated and personified,
the prevailing forms of poetry in which the pecuKar mental
development of the Greeks unfolded itself, allowed but a
limited space to descriptions of nature.

Yet, a deep sense of the beauty of nature breaks forth
sometimes even in their tvRt^ic poets, in the midst of deep
sadness^ or of the most tumultuous agitation of the passions.
When (Edipus is approaching the grove of the Furies, the
chorus sings, "the noble resting-place of glorious Colonos,
vhere the melodious nightingale loves to dwell, and mourns
b clear and plaintive strains :" it sings '' the verdant dark-
ness of the thick embowering ivy, the narcissus bathed in the
dews of heaven, the golden beaming crocus, and tlie ineradi-
cable, ever fresh-springing olive tree'' (*^). Sophocles, in
striving to glorify his native Colonos, places the lofty form
of the fate-pursued, wandering king, by the side of the sleep-
less waters of the Cephisus, surrounded by soft and bright
Dnagery. The repose of nature heightens the impression of
pain called forth by the desolate aspect of the blind exile,
the victim of a dreadful and mysterious destiny. Euripides (*-^)
slso takes pleasure in the picturesque description of "the *
(tstores of Messenia and Laconia^ refreshed by a ttiousaiid

VOL. II. C

12 DESCBIFTIONS OF NATUKAI* SCENEET

fountains, under an ever mild sky, and through which the
beautiful Pamisus rolls his stream/'

Bucolic poetry, bom in the Sicilian fields, and popularly
inclined to the dramatic, has been called, with reason, a
transitional form. These pastoral epics on a small scale
depict human beings rather than scenery : they do so m
Theocritus, in whose hands this form of poetry reached its
greatest perfection. A soft elegiac element is indeed every
where proper to the idyll, as if it had arisen from " the
longing for a lost ideal/' or as if in the human breast a
degree of melancholy were ever blended with the deeper
feelings which the view of nature inspires.

"When the true poetry of Greece expired with Grecian
liberty, that which remained became descriptive, didactic,
instructive; — astronomy, geography, and the arts of the
hunter and the fisherman, appeared in. the age of Alexander
and his successors as objects of poetry, and were indeed
often adorned with much metrical skill. The forms and
habits of animals are described with grace, and often with
such exactness that our modem classifying natural histo-
rians can recognise genera and even species. But in none
of these writings can we discover the presence of that inner
life — that inspired contemplation — whereby to the poet,
almost unconsciously to himself, the external world becomes
a subject of the imagination. The undue preponderance of
the descriptive element shews itseK in the forty-eight cantos
of the Dionysiaca of the Egyptian Nonnus, which are dis-
tingmshed by a very artfully constructed verse. This poet
takes pleasure in describing great revolutions of nature • he
makes a fire kindled by lightning on the wooded banks of

BT THIS GREEKS. IS

the Hydaspes bum even the fish in the bed of the river ; he
tells how ascending vapoors produce the meteorological
processes of storm and electric rain. Nonnus of Panopolis
is inclined to romantic poetry^ and is remarkably unequal;
at times spirited and interesting, at others verbose and
tedious.

A more delicate sensibility to natural beauty shews itself
occasionally in the Greek Anthology, which has been handed
down to us in such various ways, and from such different
periods. In the pleasing translation by Jacobs, all that
"relates to plants and animals is collected in one section :
these passages form small pictures, most commonly, of only
single objects. The plane tree, which " nourishes among
its boughs the grape swelling with rich juice,^' and which,
in the time of Dionysius the Elder, reached the banks of
the Sicilian Anapus from Asia Minor, through the Island of
Diomedes, occurs perhaps but too often ; still, on the whole,
the antique mind shews itself in these songs and epigrams as
more inclined to dwell on animal than on vegetable forms.

The vernal idyll of Meleager of Gadara in Coelo-Syria is
a noble and more important composition (**). I am un-
willing, were it only for the ancient renown of the locality,
to omit all notice of the description of the wooded Vale of
"'^mpe given by jElian ("), probably from an earlier notice
fcy Dicearchus. It is the most detailed description of
^tural scenery by a Greek prose writer which we possess;
and, although topographic, is at the same time picturesque.
The shady valley is enlivened by the Pythian procession
(theoria), ''which gathers from the sacred laurel the
reconciling bough.''

In the latest Byzantine epoch, towards the end of the

14 t^ESCBIPTIONS OF NATUBAL SCENBKT

fourth century, we find descriptions of scenery frequently
introduced in the romances of the Greek prose writers ; as
in the pastoral romance of Longus (^6), in which, however,
the author is much more successful in the tender scenes

«

taken from life, than in the expression of sensibility to tlie
beauties of nature^

It is not the object of these pages to introduce more than
such few references to particular forms of poetic art, as may
tend to illustrate general considerations respecting the poetic
conception of the external world; and I should here quit
the flowery circle of Hellenic antiquity, if, in a work to which
I have ventured to give the name of '' Cosmos,^' I could
pass over in silence the description of nature, with which the
pseudo Aristotelian book of the Cosmos (or " Order of th^
Universe^^) commences. This description shews u» ^'the
terrestrial globe adorned with luxuriant vegetation, abun-
dantly watered, and, which is most worthy of praise, inha-
bited by thinking beings^' (*^). The rhetorical colouring
of this rich picture of nature, so unlike the concise and
purely scientific manner of the Stagirite, is one of the many
indications by which it has been judged not to have beeaa
his composition. Conceding this point, and ascribing it to
Appuleius (^®), or to Chrysippus (^9), or to any other author,
its place is fully supplied by a brief but genuine fragment
which Cicero has preserved to us from a lost work of
Aristotle (20). "If there were beings living in the depths
of the earth, in habitations adorned with statues and paint-
ings, and every thing which is possessed in abundance by
those whom we call fortunate, and if these beings should
receive tidings of the dominion and power of the gods, and
should then be brought from their hidden dwelling

BY THE AOMANS. ~« l5

places to the surface which we inhabit, and should sud-
denlj behold the earthy and the sea, and the vault of
heaven ; should perceive the broad expanse of the clouds and
the strength of the winds; should admire the sun in his
Doajesty, beauty, and efiFiilgence; and, lastly, when night veiled
the earth in darkness, should gaze on the starry firmament, the
waxing and waning moon, and the stars rising and setting
in their unchanging course, ordained from eternity, they
would, of a truth, exclaim, ^ there are gods, and such great
things are their work/ '* It has been justly said, that these
words would alone be sufficient to confirm Cicero's opinion
of "the golden flow of the Aristotelian eloquence" (2^), and
that there breathes in them somewhat of the inspired genius
d Plato. Such a testimony as this to the existence of
heavenly powers, ^from the beauty and infinite grandeur of
the works of creation, is indeed rare in classical antiquity.

That which we miss with regard to the Greeks, I will not
say in their appreciation of natural phsenomena, but in the
direction which their literature assumed, we find still more
sparingly among the Bomans. A nation wliicli> oonfonnitr
with the old SicuUan manners, manifested a marked predilec-
tion for agriculture and rural Ufe, might have justified other
topes; but with all their capacity for practical activity, the
Bomans, in their cold gravity, and measured sobriety of
imderstanding, were, as a people, far inferior to the Greeks
in the perception of beauty, and far less sensitive to its influ*
cnce; and were much more devoted to the realities of every-
% life, than to an idealising poetic contemplation of nature.

These inherent differences between the Greek and Boman
inind are faithfully reflected, as is always the case with
national character, in their respective literatures ; and I must

16 DBSCWPTIONS OF NATUEIL SCENTOY

add to this consideration, that of the acknowledged diflereaw
in the organic structare of the two languages, notwithstand-
ing the affinity between the races. The language of ancient
Latium is regarded as possessing less flexibaity, a more
Umited adaptation of words, and " more of realistic tendency'
than of ^' ideal mobility.'^ The predflection for the imita-
tion of foreign Greek models in the Augustan age, might,
moreover, have been nnfevourable to the free outpourings of
the native mind and feelings in reference to nature ; but yet,
powerful minds, animated by love of country, have efCectually
surmounted these varied obstacles, by creative individuality,
by elevation of ideas, and by tender grace in their presenta-
tion. The great poem which is the fruit of the rich genius
of Lucretius, embraces the whole Cosmos : it has mucn
affinity with the works of Empedocles and Parmenides ; and
the grave tone in which the subject is presented is enhanced
by its archaic diction. Poetry and philosophy are closely
interwoven in it ; without, however, falling into that coldness
of composition, which, as contrasted with Plato's views of
nature so rich in imagination, is severely blamed by the rhetor
Menander, in the sentence passed by him on the '' hymns to
nature^' (2^). My brother has pointed out, with great in-
genuity, the striking analogies and diversities produced by
the interweaving of metaphysical abstraction with poetry in
the ancient Greek didactic poems, in that of Lucretius, and
in the Bhagavad-Gita episode of the Lidian epic Mahab-
harata(23). In the great physical picture of the universe
traced by the Soman poet, we find contrasted with las
chilling atomic doctrine, and his often extravagantly wild
geological fancies, the fresh and animated description of
mankind exchanging the thickets of the forest for the pur*

BY THE ROMANS. 17

«mts of agriculture, the subjugation of natural forces^ the
cultivation of the intellect and of language, and the forma-
tion of civil society (^).

When, in the midst of the busy and agitated life of a

statesman, and in a mind excited by political passions, an

animated love of nature and of rural solitude still subsists,

its source must be sought in the depths of a great and

noble character. CScero's writings shew the truth of

this assertion. Although it is generally recognised that in

the book De Legibus, and in that of the Orator, many things

are imitated from the Phsedrus of Plato (^), yet the picture

of Italian nature does not lose its individuality and truth.

Rato, in more general characters, praises the dark shade of

the lofty plane tree, the luxuriant abundance of fragrant

herbs and flowers, the sweet summer breezes, and the chorus

(rf grasshoppers/' In Cicero's smaller pictures, we find, as

has been recently well remarked (2®), all those features

which we still recognise in the actual landscape : we see the

Liris shaded by lofty poplars ; and in descending the steep

mountain side to the east, behind the old castle of Arpinum,

we look on the grove of oaks near the Fibrenus, as well as

on the island now called Isola di Camello, which is formed

by the division of the stream, and into which Cicero retired,

as he says, to " give himself up to his meditations, to read,

or to write/' Arpinum, on the Volscian Mountains, was

the birthplace of the great statesman; and his mind and

character were doubtless influenced in his boyhood by the

grand scenery of the vicinity. In the mind of man, the

reflex action of the external aspect of surrounding nature is

early and unconsciously blended with that which belongs to

1 8 DEScaiFnoNS of natural scenery

the original tendencies^ capacities^ and powers of his own
inner being.

In the midst of the stormy and eventful period of the
year 708 (from the foundation of Eome), Cicero found con-
solation m his villas, alternately at Tusculum, Arpinum,
Cumae, and Antium. " Nothing/' he writes to Atticus (^7),
'' can be more delightful than this solitude ; more pleasing
than this country dwelling, the neighbouring shore, and
the prospect over the sea. In the lonely island of Astura,
at the mouth of the river of the same name, and on the
shore of the Tyrrhenian sea, no human being disturbs me ;
and when, early in the morning, I hide myself in a thick
wild forest, I do not leav© it until the evening. Next to
my Atticus, nothing is so dear to me as solitude, in which I
cultivate intercourse with philosophy; but this intercourse
is often interrupted with tears. I strive against these as
much as 1 can, but I have not yet prevailed.'^ It has been
repeatedly remarked, that in these letters, and in those of
tlie younger Pliny, expressions resembling those so common
amongst the sentimental writers of modem times may be
unequivocally recogmsed; I find in them only the accents
of a mind deeply moved, such as in every age, and every
nation or race, escape from the heavily-oppressed bosom.

From the general diffusion of Roman literature, the master
works of Virgil, Horace, and Tibullus, are so widely and
intimately known, that it would be superfluous to dwell on
individual instances of the delicate and ever wakeful sensi-
bility to nature, by which many of them are animated. In
the -^neid, the epic character forbids the appearance of
descriptions of natural scenes and objects otherwise than as

BY THE ROMANS. 19

subordinate and accidental features^ limited to a very small
space; individual localities are not pourtrayed (^), but an
iatimate understanding and love of nature manifest them-
selves occasionally with peculiar beauty. Where have the
soft play of the waves^ and the repose of nighty ever hem
more happily described? and how finely do these mild and
tender images contrast with the powerful representations of
the gathering and bursting tempest in the first book of the
Georgics^ and with the descriptions in the iEneid of the
navigation and landing at the Strophades^ the crashing fall
of the rock, and of jEtna with its flames (^). We might
have expected from Ovid, m the fruit of his long sojourn in
the plains of Tomi in Lower Maesia, a poetic description of
the aspect of nature in the steppes ; but none such has come
down to us from antiquity, either from him or from any other
writer. The Soman exile did not indeed see that kind of
steppe which in summer is thickly covered by rich herbage
and flowering plants from four to six feet high, which, as
each breeze passes over them, present the pleasing picture
of an undulating many-coloured sea of flowers and verdure.
The place of his banishment was a desolate marshy district.
The broken spirit of the exile, which yielded to unmanly
lamentations, was filled with recollections of the social
pleasures and the political occurrences of Borne, and had no
place for the contemplation of the Scythian desert by which
he was surroimded. On the oth» hand, this richly-gifted
poet, so powerful in vivid representation, has given us^
besides general descriptions of grottos, fountains, and silent
moonlight nights, which are but too frequently repeated, an
eminently-characteristic, and even geologically-important
description of the volcanic eruption at Methone between

20 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATUBAL SCENEBT

Epidaurus and TroBzene^ which has been referred to in the
''General View of Nature" contained in the preceding
yolnme {^).

It is especially to be regretted that Tibullus should not
have left us any great composition descriptive of natural
scenery, general or individual. He belongs to the few
among the poets of the Augustan age who, being happily
strangers to the Alexandrian learning, and devoted to retire-
ment and a rural life, full of feeling and therefore simple,
drew from their own resources. Elegies are indeed portraits
of mind and manners of which the landscape forms only the
backgrouiid; but the Lustration of the Fields and the 6th
Elegy of the .irst book shew what might have been expected
from the friend of Horace and Messala. p^)

Lucan, the grandson of the rhetor Marcus Annseus
Seneca, is indeed only too nearly related to his progenitor
in the rhetorical omateness of his style; yet we find among
his writings a fine description of the destruction of a Druidic
forest ('2) on the now treeless shore of Marseilles, which is
thoroughly true to nature : the severed oaks, leaning against
each other, support themselves for a time before they fall;
and, denucled of their leaves, admit the first ray of light to
penetrate the awful gloom of the sacred shade. Those who
have lived long in the forests of the New Continent, feel
how vividly the poet has depicted, with a few traits, the
luxuriant growth of trees whose giant remains are still found
buried in turf bogs in France {^^).

In a didactic poem entitled Mtna, written by Lucilins
the Younger, a friend of L. Annseus Seneca, the phaeno-
mena of a volcanic eruption are described, not inaccurately,
but yet in a far less animated and chturacteristic manner than

BY THE BOMikNS. 21

in the " ^tna Dialogcw" {^) of the youthful Bembo, men-
tioned with praise in the preceding volume.

Wbxsiy after the close of the fourth century, poetry
in its grander and nobler forms faded away^ as if ex-
hausted, poetic attempts, deprived of the mi^c of creative
imagination, were occupied only with the drier reaUties of
knowledge and description : and a certain rhetorical polish
rf style could ill replace the simple feeling for nature,
and the idealising inspiration, of an earlier age. We may
name as a production of this barren period, in which the
poetic element appears only as an accidental and merely
external ornament, a poem on the Mo t^lle, by Ausonius, a
native of Aquitanian Gaul, who had acci mpanied Valentinian
in his campaign against the Allemann]. The '^Mosella,''
which was composed at ancient Treves ('^), describes som^
times not unpleasingly the already vine-covered hiQs of
one of the loveliest rivers of Germany ; but the mere topo-
graphy of the country, the enumeration o' the streams which
flow into the Moselle, and the characters^ m form, colour,
and habits, of some of the different kinds of fish which are
found in the river, are the principal objeccs of this purely
didactic composition.

In the works of Soman prose writers, among which we
have already referred to some remarkable passages by Cicero,
descriptions of natural scenery are as rare as in those of
Greek writers of the same class; but the great historians-
Julius Csesar, Livy, and Tacitus — in relating the conflicts
rf men with natural obstacles and with hostile forces, are
sometimes led to give descriptions of fields of battle, and
of the passage of rivers, or of difficult mountain passes. In
the Annals of Tacitus, I am delighted with the description

L

22 DESCIIIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENEEY

of Grermanicus's unsuccessM navigation of the Amisia^ and
with the grand geographical sketch of the mountain chains
of Syria and of Palestine (^s). Curtius (^7) has left us a
fine natural picture of a forest wilderness to the west of
Hekatompylos, through which the Macedonian army had
to pass in entering the humid province of Mazanderan;
to which I would refer more in detail, if, iu a writer
whose period is so uncertain, we could distinguish with
any security between, what he has drawn from his own
lively imagination, and what he has derived from historic
sources.

The great encyclopaedic work of the elder Pliny, which,
as his nephew, the younger Pliny, has finely said, is " varied
as nature herself,'' and which, in the abundance of its
contents, is unequalled by any other ancient work, will be
referred to in the sequel, when treating of the " History of
the Contemplation of the Universe/' This work, which
exerted «a powerful influence on the whole of the middle
ages, is a most remarkable result of the disposition to conv*
prehensive, but often indiscriminate collection. Unequal in
style — sometimes simple and narrative, sometimes thoughtful^
animated, and rhetoricaUy ornate— it has, as, indeed, might
be expected from its form, few individual descriptions of
nature; but wherever the grand concurrent action of the
forces in the universe, the well-ordered Cosmos (naturse
majestas), is the object of contemplation, we cannot mistake
the evidences of true inward poetic inspiration.

We would gladly adduce the pleasantly-situated villas ol
the Eomans, on the Pincian Mount, at Tusculum, and
Tibur, on the promontory of Misenum, and near Puteoli and
Baise, as evidences of a love of nature, if these spots had notj

BY THE ROMANS. 23

like those in which were the villas of Scanros and Meecenas^
Lucnllus and Adrian^ been crowded with sumptuous build-
ings— ^temples, theatres, and race-courses alternating with
ayiaries and houses for rearing snails and dormice. The
elder Scipio had surrounded his more simple country seat
at Litumum with towers like a fortress. The name of
Matius, a friend of Augustus, has been handed down to us
as that of the individual whose predilection for unnatural
constraint first introduced the custom of cutting. and training
trees into artificial imitations of architectural and plastic
models. The letters of the younger Plmy furnish us with
pleasing descriptions of two P®) of his numerous villas,
liaurentinum and Tuscum. Although buildings, surrounded
by box cut into artificial forms, are more numerous and
crowded than our taste lor nature would lead u^ to desire,
yet these descriptions, as well as the imitation of the Yale
of Tempe in the Tiburtine viUa of Adrian, shew us that
among the inhabitants of the imperial dty, the love of
art, and the solicitous care for comfort and convenience
manifested in the choice of the positions of their country
houses with reference to the sun and to the prevailing
winds, might be associated with love for the free enjoyment
of nature. It is cheering to be able to add, that on the
estates of PHny this enjoyment was less disturbed than
elsewhere by the painful features of slavery. The wealthy
proprietor was not only one of the most learned men of his
period, but he had also those compassionate and truly
humane feelings for the lower claifeses of the people who were
iiot in the enjoyment of freedom, of which the expression at
least is most rare in antiquity. At his villas fetters were
^nsed; and he provided that the slave, as a cultivator of

L

S4 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATDBAL SCENERY

the soil^ should freely bequeath that which he had
acquired (39).

No description of the eternal snows of the Alps^ when tinged
in the morning or evening with a rosy hue, of the beauty of
the blue glacier ice, or of any part of the grandeur of the
scenery of Switzerland, have reached us from the ancients,
although statesmen and generals, with men of letters in
their train, were constantly passing through Helvetia into
Gaul* All these travellers think only of complaining of
thedifBculties of the way; the romantic character of the
scenery never seems to have engjiged their attention. Tt is
even known that Julius Caesar, when returning to his legions
in Graul, employed his time, while passing oveif the Alps, in
preparing a grammatical treatise "De Analogia'^ ('*®).
Silius Italicus, who died under Trajan, when, Switzerland
was already in great measure cultivated, describes the
district of the Alps merely as an awful and barren wilder-
ness (**) ; although he elsewhere loves to dwell in verse on
the rocky ravines of Italy, and the wood-fringed banks of
the Liris (Garigliano) (*2). It is deserving of notice that
the remarkable appearance of groups of jointed basaltic
columns, such as are seen in several parts of the interior of
France, on the banks of the Bhine, and in Lombardy, never
engagcfl the attention of the Eomans sufficiently to lead
their writers to describe or even to mention them*

At the period when the feelings which had animated
classical antiquity, and had directed the mind$ of men to the
active manifestation of human power, almost to the exclu-
sion of the passive contemplation of the natural world, were
expiring, a new influence, and new modes of thought, were

BT THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. 25

ganmigsway. Christiaiiity gradoaUy diflused itself; and,
as where it was received as the religion of the state^ its bene-
ficent action on the lower classes of the people favoured
the general cause of civil freedom, so also did it render
man's contemplation of nature more enlarged and free.
The forms of the Olympic gods no longer fixed the eyes of
men : the fathers of the church proclaimed, in their sestheti*
cafly correct, and often poetically imaginative language,
that the Creator shews himself great no less in inanimate
than in Uving nature; in the wild strife of the elements as
well as in the silent progress of organic development. But
durmg the gradual dissolution of the Boman Empire,
vigour of imagination, and .simplicity and purity of diction,
declined more and more, first in the Latin countries, and
afterwards in the Greek or eastern portion of the empire.
A predilection for solitude, for saddened meditation, and
for an internal absorption of mind, seems to have influenced
simultaneously both the language itself and the colouring of
the style.

Where a new element appears to develop itsdf suddenly
«nd generally in the feelings of men, we may almost always
trace earlier indications of a deep-seated germ existing pre-
viously in detached and solitary instances. The softness
of Mimnermus (*3) has often been called a sentimental
direction of the mind. The ancient world is not abruptly
separated from the modern ; but changes in the religious
sentiments and apprehensions of men, in their tenderest moral
feelings, and in the particular mode of life of those who
influence the ideas of the masses, gave a sudden predomi-
i^ance to that which previously escaped notice.

•The tendency of the Christian mind was Co shew the

26 DESCEIPnONS OF NATURAL SCENEKT

greatness and goodness of the Creator from the order of th«
universe and the beauty of nature ; and this desire to glorify
the Deity through his works, favoured a disposition for
natural descriptions. We find the earliest and most detailed
instances of this kind in the writings of Minucius Felix, s
rhetorician and advocate living in Eome in the beginning
of the iJiird century, and a contemporary of TertuUian and
Philostratus. We follow him with pleasure in the evening
twilight to thef sea shore near Ostia, which, indeed, he
describes as more picturesque, and more favouiable to
health, than we now find it. The religious discourse
entitled '^ Octavius'* is a spirited defence of the new feith
against the attacks of a heathen friend (**).

This is the place for introducing from the Greek fathers of
the church extracts descriptive of natural scenes, which are
probably less known to my readers than are the evidences of
the ancient Italian love for a rural life contained in Eoman
literature. I will begin with a letter of the great Basil,
which has long been an especial favourite with me. Basil,
who was a native of Cesarea in Cappadocia, left the pleasures
of Athens when little more than thirty years of age, and,
having already visited the Christian hermitages of Coelo-
Syria and Tipper Egypt, withdrew, like the Essenes and
Therapeuti before Christianity, into a wildemess adjacent to
the Armenian liver Iris. His second brother, Naucratius (**),
kad been drowned there while engaged in fishing, after
leading for five years the life of a rigid anchorite. Basil
writes to his friend Gregory of Kaziauzum, " I beheve I
have at last found the end of my wanderings : my hopes of
miithig myself with thee — ^my pleasing dreams, I should
father say^ for the hopes of men have been justly cailfid

BT THB SABLT OflSISnAHSt - 87

waking dreams^ — ^have remained nnfdlfilled. God has
eaosed me to find a place such as has often hovered before
{he fancy of ns both ; and that which imagination shewed
ns afar off^ I now see present before me. A high mountain,
clothed with thick forest, is watered towards the north by
fresh and ever flowing streams; and at the foot of thci
mountain extends a wide plain, which these streams render
fruitfal. The surrounding forest, in which grow many kinds
of trees, shuts me in as in a strong fbrtress. This wilder-
ness is bounded by two deep ravines ; on one side the riverj,
precipitating itself foaming from the mountain, forms an-
obstacle difficult to overcome ; and the other side is enclosed
by a broad range of hills. My hut is so placed on the
smmnit of the mountain, thafc I overlook the extensive plain;
and the whole course of the Iris, which is both more
beautiful, and more abundant in its waters, than the
Strymon near Amphipolis. The river of my wilderness^
wluch is more rapid than any which I have ever seen, breakiS
against the jutting precipice, and throws itself foaming into
the deep pool below — ^to the mountain igraveller an object on
which he gazes with delight and admiration, and valuable
to the native for the many fish which it affords. Shall I
describe to thee the fertilising vapours rismg from the
moist earth, and the cool breezes from the broken watier?
shall I speak of the lovely song of the birds, and of the
piofdsion of flowers? What charms me most of all is tbf
undisturbed tranquillity of the district : it is only vi9te4
occasionally by hunters; for my wilderness feeds deer and
ierds of wild goats, not your b^ara and your wolves. How
ihonld X exchange any other place ior this! AlcmseoHi
^hesk he had found the EchinadeSj would not wand^

VOL. II. J>

fcriher** (*^). In this simpte descriptimi of the lan^Mamv
mi of the life of the forest, there speak feelings flaore iii&
mately allied to those of mod^m times than any thing that
Greek and Boman antiqnily have bequeathed to us. Jrom
file lonely mountain hut to which Basilins had retired, the
«je looks down on the humid roof of foliage of the forest faoh
neath ; the resting-plaoe for which he and his friend Gregoxy
of Nazianznm (*^) have so long panted is at last fonaii.
Iht sportive allusion at the dose to the poetic mythv* of
Alcmseon sounds like a distant lingering echo, repeating ia
the Christian world accents bebnging to that mbidk IobA
preceded it.

Basil^s Homilies on the Hexaemeron also bear witness to
his love of nature. He describes the mildness of the eoii<*
itantly serene nights of Asia Minor, whare, according to bis
expression, tiie stars, ^ those eternal flowen of heavvn/'
raise the spirit of man &om the visits to the InvisiblB ("^
"Wben, in speaking of the creation of the would, he desiies
to praise the beaufy Kii Ute sea, he describes the nafedk
of the boundless plain of waters in its dififercmt and vsaj*
ing conditions — ^how, wh^i gently agitated by wSySj*
breathing airs^ it gives badk the varied hxjaesi of heaven, now
fai white, now in Uue/and now in roseate li^; aadcaxesfles
fhe t^re in peacefol play V*

'We find in Gr^ory of' Nyssa, filie broifaar of Baal, Ab
tane delght in nature, tke same sentimental and paitiy
iniancholjr mn. ^When,'' he exclaims, ^I behold oadi
Cttaggy lall, eaeh valky, and eadi plain clothed with fredft-
hprioging grass ; ike varied fblkge miOi whHJi the tmea loe
adofned; at my feet the UKes to wMdi natioo has mm. %
^tJfle dovNer, «tf tsiv^ fragrance, nad of beaai^ of «oloart

mA tn (iie ^iirimo^ tb^ fm» towards which the wftnderq^g
dkmd ii MJling^-^-ni; lomd U posse^^ed wfth a wdaess whioh
fa not devoid of m^QjmmU Warn, in fii;itaixm> the &ui1i9
imfptwt, the liBave» lall mi the brancbe^ of the trees,
stripped of tlieir Of o«inmte» h»Dg lifdesa, in viewing thi«
ptrpetuiil «od regukr^ mmrring sltemation the sdnd
hf^amee disorbed in the Qontemplstionj and ia.pt as it
wtQ in unieon with the maoj*¥oiced chorus of the won*
drons {Qms» ^ natiu^e. Wbpso gazes through these with
the inward eye of tfa^ijo^ feels the littleness of man in the
g^teesa of the umverae'' (^9),

While the early Christian Greeks were thus lec^ by
l^ofifying God in a loving contemplation of nature^ to poetio
daser^tions el her various beantyi they were at the same
liaie &11 of contempt for all wori:s of human art* We find jn
Qiiyiostom many euch pasa^es as these : ''when thou lookest
fn^ the ^itteiiiHI huildingSi if the ranges of columns would
seduce thy hearty turn quickly to contemplate the vap^i of
heaven and the open fields^ with the flocks grazing by the
5nter's side« Who but despises all that art can shew whilst
liegazQs at early mom# an^ m the ail^^e of the he9rt»
«i ib lising m pouring bis golden %ht upon <he
«aith; or when seated by the fide of a fountaii^ in the cool
grass, or in the dark shade of thi^ foliage* his eye feede
the wide on the wide^tended prospect fyic vanjsbiug tu the
distant' {9<>)v. Aatiocb was at this period §ui^n^ded by
haimitafes, in one (tf which Phrysostom dwelt * it migy^

'have seemed that eloanenee Ha^ found a^y«>Ti heat fljpiwftiat^
ihidom^ ou r^tiurpmg to the bosom of nature in the. th^
brnk-oBwrni naom^ain district of Syria a^d Mm Mimi^»
Alt whMi^ ihuing ti)e ^baequeiMi Jippi^ sq hos^e isi «V

80 DESCRIFri05S OF KATtTBAX. 8CENEBT

intellectual oultivation^ Christianity spread among the der^
manic and Celtic races^ who had previously been devoted ix^
the worship of nature, and who honoured under rude symbol*
its preserving and destroying powers^ the close and affec-»
tionate intercourse with the external world of phsenomena
which we have remarked among the early Christians of
Greece and Italy, as well a^ all endeavours to trace the
action of natural forces, fell gradually under suspicion, ad
fending towards sorcery. They were therefore regarded as
hot less dangerous than the art of the sculptor had appea-ted
to Tcrtullian, Clemens of Alexandria, and almost all the
inost ancient fathers of the church. In the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, the Councils of Tours (1163) and of
Paris (1209) forbade to monks the sinful reading of writings
On physical science (®^). These intellectual fetters Were
first broken by the courage of Albertus Magnus and Rogei^
Bacon* when nature was pronounced pure^ and reinstated iii
her ancient rights.

Hitherto we have sought to depict differences which hav6
flhewn themselves in different periods of time ; and in tw6
literatures so nearlv allied as were those of the Greeks and
the Romans. But not only are great differences in modeii
of feeling produced by time, — ^by the changes which it
brings with it, in forms of government, in manners, and
in religious views, — ^but diversities still more striking are
produced by differences of race and of mental dispositioiu
JSow different in animation and in poetic colouring are the
^manifestations of the love of nature and the descriptions of
natural scenery among the Greeks, the Germans of the
liorth, the Semitic races, the Persians^ and the Indians!

BT THE 6EIIMAN9 OP THE HIDDLB AGES. 81

An opinion has been repeatedly expressed^ that the delic^ht
in nature felt by northern nations, and the longing desiro
for the pleasant fields of Italy and Greece^ and for the won^
derfol luxuriance of tropical vegetation^ are principally to be
ascribed to the long winter's privation of all such enjoy-
ments. We do not mean to deny that the longing for thq
<&ate of palms seems to diminish as we approach the
Soutji of France and the Iberian Peninsula ; but the now
generally employed, and etjmologically correct name of Indo-
Germanic races, might alone be suf&cient to remind ns thai
^e niust be cautious lest we generalise too much respecting
tte influence thus ascribed to northern winters.. The rich*
iiess of the poetic literature of the Indians teaches us, that
^thia and near the tropics south of the great chain of th^
™ialaya, the sight of ever verdant and ever flowering
forests has at all times acted as a powerful stimulus to tho
pontic and imaginative faculties of the East-Arianic natioiis^
^^ that these jiations have been more strongly incliqed to
picturesque degcriptipns of nature than the true Germ^niO
y^s, ^}^Q^ ]j^ the far inhospitable north, had extended eveu
^^ Iceland. A deprivation, or, at least, a certain int^rr
.'option of the enjoyment of nature, is not, however, unr
'^Q'Wix even to the happier climates of Southern Asia . the
^^^^Hs are there abruptly divided from each other by alto
^}^ periods of fertilising rain and of dusty desolatiug
^'^aity, Jn the Persian plateau of West Aria^ the desert
^^U extends in^ deep bays far into the interior of the mo^
'f^^^Uiig .and fruitful lands, In Middle and m Westerp
'^*^> a margin of forest often forms as it were the shore df
' ^dely extended inland sea of steppe ; imd thus the inhabi-
''wHq pf fliege hot countries .have presented to them the

ti DESCElPnOKS OF NATURAL SGENEST

strongest contrasts of desert barrenness sai Inxnriant vege-
tation^ in the same horizontal phme^ as w^ as in the vertiaal
devation of the snow-capped monntain chains of India and
of Afghanistan. Wherever a lirelj tendency to the contem-^
plation of nature is intenroTen with the whole intellectoal
cultiyation, and with the letigions feelings of a nation, gi^^
and striking contrasts of season, of vegetation, or of elevft*
Hon, are unfailing stimnlants to ^e poetic itnaginatioiL

Delight in nature, inseparable from liie tendency to bbjeiv
tive contemplation which belongs to the (Jarmanic imtiofis^
iliews itself in a high degree in the tsarliest poeCrj <^ Oat
middle ages. Of this the chiTalric poems of the Minne^
aingars during the Hohenstauffen period afford us numeioiis
examples. Manj and yaried as ue its pmnts of contaci
%ith the romanesque poetry of the Provencals, yel its tmi
Germanic principle can never be mistaken. A deep fi^ and
all pervading love of nature may be discttited in all G^f^
liiame manners^ habits» and modes of life; and even in Hm
kve of freedom diarMlcristic of the iace(^). The waadcf^
ing ICmiesingeis, or minstreb^ though living iinif^^ik
eourtly circles (&^»ii which, indeed, th^ (ilen qprang), ^SH
maintained frequent and intimate intcfcourse with mitui^
and pfeaertedy in all its frei^ines^ an idyOic, tiid often aa
degiae, turn cf tiioi^t. I avail mys^ on these subjeete
of the researches of ^lose most {^ofounAy x^^std. in i^
Idstory and fiteratuie of our German midiUe sgC8> n^nobtew
ssmded friends Jacob and IVUhehn Gittna. *The poets ^
imr country i>t that period,^ says the kst naiBed wijiee

** never gave separate descripttoos of talatal senefy des^Md
•okly to represent^ in Itfillkal cokurs^ Ae trnpresskni %f

Ae hndicape om ^ Mad. Aissimdiy the eye eosi

BT THE GKBJCAKS OF THB SIODXS A6BS. tt

fedii^ for nature were not wmntmg in tiiese old (kfnm

meters; bat ike only expressions thereof whidi they have

left us are such as flowed forth in lyrical strains^ in oonneo*

tion with the occurrences or the feelin^i belonging to the

narrative. To begin with the b6st and oldest monuments of

tibe popular qNW^ we do not find any description of scenery

either in the Niebelungen or in GadrQn(")^ eyen where the

occasion might lead ns to look for it. In the otherwise

Qrcumstantial descripticm of t\m chase during which Siq;^

tied is murdered, the only natural features mentioned are

flie Uooming heather and the cool fountain under the

linden tree. In Gudrun^ which shews something of a

higher polish, a finer eye for nature seems also discernible.

When the king's daughter, with her companions, reduced

to slavery, and compelled to perf(»rm menial offices, carry

•the garments of their cruel lord to the sea-shcoe, the time is

indicated as being the season 'when winter is just dissobr-

iag, and the birds begin to be heard, vying with eadi other

in their songs ; snow and rain still fall, and the hair of the

captive maidens is blown by the rude winds of March.

yfim Oudrun, hoping for the approach of her deliverer^

leaves her couch, the morning star rises over the sea, which

begins to glisten in the early dawn, and she distinguishes

the dark hdmets and the shields ol her friends/ The words

ve few, but th^ convey to the fancy a visible picture, suited

to heighten the feeling of expectation and suspense previous

to Ihe oooorrence of an important event in the narrative*

Ik like manner, when Homer paints the island of tiie

•Qck^ and the gardens of Alcinons, his purpose is te

^Qg before our eyes the bxznriant fertility and abundance

djrf&Qwild dvelling-place of tiie giant monsters, and th0

$Mr PBSCBIPTDONS OF NATUIIAL SCBNBBT '

iBagnificent residence of a powerful king. In neither po6l
as the description of nature a primary or independent
object."

'^Opposed to these simple popular epics^ are the more

Varied and artificial narrations of the chivalrous poets of the

thirteenth century; among whom^ Hartmann von Ane^

Wolfram yon Eschenbach^ and Gottfried von Strasburg {^),

in the early part of the century^ are so much distinguished

above the rest^ that they may be called great and classifiaL

It would be easy to bring together from their extensive

nimtings sufficient proof of their deep feeling for nature^ as-

at breaks forth in similitudes ; but distinct and independfiot

descriptions of natural scenes are never found in their pages;

ihey never arrest the progress of the action to contemplate

the tranquil life of nature. How different is this from the

writers of modem poetic compositions ! Bernardin de St.-

Pierre uses the occurrences of his narratives only as frames for

iis pictures. The lyric poets of the 13th century, e«peciaUy

wl^en singing of love, (which is not, however, their constant

theme), speak, indeed, often of ' gentle May,' of the ' so^g

of the nightingale,' ^d ' the dew glistening on the bells of

heather,' but 3lways in connection with sentiments springijog

iirom other sources, which these outward images serve to

reflect. Thus, when feehngs of sadness are to be indicated,

3nention is made of fading leaves, birds whose songs wp

ipiute, and the fruits of the field buried in snow. The sam^

thoughts recur incessantly, not indeed without considerable

variety a^ well as beauty in the manner in which they are

expressed. Walther von der Yogelweide, and Wolfram von

Eschenbach, the former characterised by tenderness an^ the

Jatter by deep thought, have left us some lyrio piece%

Bl TEOi eSBHANS OF THB MIDDLE AGES. 85

infbrfccmfitdly only few iu uumber^ which are deserving of
honourable mention/'

^'If it be asked whether contact with Southern Italy, and,

jby loeans of the crusades, with Asia Minor, Syria, and

f %|estine, did not enrich poetic art in Germany with new

ioiagery drawn bom the aspect of nature in more sunny

#aies, the question must, on the whole, be answered in the

^egstive. We do not find that acquaintance with the East

(imgei the direction of the minstrel poetry of the period :

the GTusadevs had little familiar communication with the

Saiac^is, and there was much of repulsion even between the

lirariiors of differ^it nations associated for a common cause.

friedri(^ von Hausen, who perished in Barbarossa's army,

was one of the earliest German lyrical poets. His souga

often relate to the crusades, but only to express religious

feelings, or the pains of absence from a beloved object.

If ath^ he nor any of the writers who had taken part in the ex-^

pefitions to Palestine, as Reinmar the Elder, Rubin, Neidliatt,

and Ulrich of Lichtenstein, ever take occasion to speak of the

pQUi^jry in which they were sojourmng. Eeinmar came to

Syria as a pilgrim, it would appear, in the train of Duke

liO&poId YI. of Austria : he complains that the thoughts of

hcHUe leave him no peace, and draw him away from God„

The date-tree is occasionally mentioned, in speaking of the

Pfthns which pious pilgrims should bear on their shoulders.

Neither do I remember any indication of the loveliness of

Italiau nature having stimulated the imagination of those

'^^^ii^sfcrels who crossed the Alps. Walther von der VogeU

wride, though he had wandered hr, had in Italy seen only

tt^Po; butJPreidank(^) was in Eqme, and he merely

M xxBSCiapnoNa ov katu&u* sgenikt

lemarks tliat 'grass now growsin tliepalaoes of tbosevte
once ruled there/ "

The German Thier-epos^ which must not be oonfomided
with the oriental "isiAt" originated in habitual assodatioa
and familiarity wkh the animal world ; to paint which was
Boiv however^ its purpose. This peculiar class of pocsm^
which Jacob Grimm has treated in so masterly a manner^ m
the introduction to his edition of Beinhart Fuchs^ shews a
cordial delight in nature. The animals^ not attached to tlw
ground^ excited by passion^ and gifted by the poet wiHi
speech, contrast with the still life of the silent plants, snd
iform a ccmstantly active element enlivening the landscapes
f ' The early poetry loves to look on the life of nature with hn^
Bian eyes, and lends to animals, and even to {4ants, hmnas
thoughts and feelings j giving a fanciful and childhkff
interpretation to all that has been observed of their forms
and habits. Plants and flowers, gathered and used by gods
and heroes^ are afterwards named from them. In reading
the old German epitt, in which brutes are the actors, ws
breathe an air redolent as it were with the sylvan odoui» si
some ancient forest" f^)^

Formerly we mi^t have been tempted to nomber among
the memorials of Germanic poetiy having xeieience to
external nature, the supposed remains of the Celto-IciA
poems, which, for half a century, passed as diapes of misk
from nation to nation, under the name of Ossian ; but tiis
spell has been broken since the complete discovery of tltt
literary fraud of the talented Maq>her6on, by his pufalicatua
0f tiie supposed Gadac original text, now known to havs
been ft setrandation from the !Eing]ish work. Thieata s«%

■>>r

1

Ittfteed^ ancient Irish PingaUan songs belonging to the timor
of Christiamty^ and perhaps not eren reaching as &r badt
i& the dghth century; but these poptdar songs contain
ttnle of the sentimental description of nature trhich gives m
pn^culstf diarm to Macpherson's poems (^') .

Ife have already remarked^ that if sentimental and
romantic turns of thought and feeling in reference to nature
belong In a high degree to the Indo-Qermanic races of
Worthem Europe, it should not be r^arded only as & con-
ieqoence of climate ; that is, as arising from a longing desire
itthanced by prdtracted privation. I have noticed, that the
Mbfratures of India ftnd of Persia, which have unfolded
mrier the gtowmg brightn<iss o£ southern skies, offer
descriptions fiill of charm, not duly of oi^nic, but also of
febrganic nature ; of the ti^nsition from parching drought
to tropical ram ; of the appearance of the first cloud on the
deep aaure of the pure sky, and the first msfling sound of
te kmg desired etesian winds in the feathered foliage of the
Mumnits of the pahns.

' It is now time to enter somewhat more deeply into the
•ubject of file Indian descriptions of nature. "Let ui
bmigiue,'' says Lassen, in his excellent work on Indian
iiteimiy (■®), ''a pofrtion of the Arfanic race migrating from
fiirft primifive seats, in the north-west, to India: they
trotdd there find' themselves surrounded by scenery altob.
|ether new, and by vegetation of a striking and luxuriant
ttottact^f. The mfldness of the climate, the fertility of the
^9, the proftision of ribh gifts which it lavishes almost
tpontaneously, wooM afl tend to impart to the new fife rf
fte immigrants a bright uid cheeiM colouring. The origi*
tafly fine organisation of this race, and their hi^ endow-

88 DESCUIPTXONS OP NATUUAL SCEKT5RT

ments of intellect and disposition^ the germ of all that iiui
nations of India have achieved of great or iioble> eaorljr
gendered the spectacle of the external world productive of #
profound meditation on the forces of nature^ which is the
groundwork oi^ that contemplative tendency which we find
intimately interwoven with the earliest Indian poetry. This
prevailing impression on the mental disposition of the
people^ has embodied itself most distinctly in their funda-
piental religious tenets, in the recognition of the divine in
nature. Xhe careless ease of outward life likewise favoured
the indulgence of the contemplative tendency. Who coiild
have less to disturb their meditations on earthly life^ ^^
condition of man after death, and on the divine esseDce, .
than the Indian anchorites, the Brahmins dwelling in th^
forest (^^), whose aacient schools constituted one of the
Vaost peculiar phsenomena of Indian life^ and materiaUy
influenced the mental development of the whole race P^'
, In referring mnw, as I did in my public lectures under thi
guidance of my brother and of others conversant witb
Sanscrit literature, to p^cular instances of the vivid s^nse
pf natural beauty which frequently breaks forth in tho
descriptive portions of Indian poetry, I begin with thi^
Yedas, or saored writings, which are the earliest monumento
pf the civihsation of the East Arianic nations, and are princi^
paUy occupied with the adoring veneration of nature. Th^
^ymns (4 the lEdg-Yeda contain beautiEd descriptions of thi)
hl^it of ^arly dawn, and the appearance of the /'goldeoti
)umded'' sun. The great hercdc poem^ of llamayana a^
M^^bhar^tf^ are later than the Yedas, and earlier than, tl^
JPvra^oa^ J an4 w them the p):ais^ of nature pre conmed^
with ^ narrative, agreeably to the essential character of epif

BT THE Iin>IAN£U 89

pbetry. In the Yedas^ it is sddom possible to assign the
particular locality whence the sacred sages derive their inspi-
fation; in the heroic poems^ on the contrary^ the descriptions
are mostly individual, and attached to particular locahties,
^d are animated by that iresher hf e which is fonnd where
4he writer has drawn from impressions of which he was hinif-
self the recipient. Kama's journey from Ajodhya to thd
capital of Dschanaka, his sojourn in the primeval forest, and
the picture of the hermit life of the Panduides, are all richly
eoloured.

The name of the great poet EaKdasa, who flourished at
the highly polished court of Vikramaditya, contempora*
^eously with Yirgil and Horace, has obtained an early and
etteiijsive celebrity among the nations of the west : nearot
.tor own times, the English and German translations ot
Sacontala have farther contributed, in a high degree, to the
admiration so largely felt for an author, whose tenderness of
leeling, and rich creative imagination, claim for him a dis^
tegukhed place among the poets of all countries (^)« The
K^hiffm of his descriptions of nature is seen also in the lovely
dtama of *' Vikrama and Urvasi,'' in which the king wanders
tttt)«igh the thickets of the forest in search of the nymph
Vrrtei; in the poem of ''The Seasons/' and in. "The
Meghaduta,'' or " Cloud Messei^r/' The last named poein
Jaints, with admirable truth to nature, the joyful welcomte
which, after a long continuance of tropical drought, ha^d
tte first appearance of the rising cloud, which shews that
♦he looked-for season of rains is at hand. The expf69»
f^^3 ''truth to •nature,"' which I have just employed, calk
flone justify me in venturing to recal, in connection with
^Indian poem^ a sketch f of the commencement of the

jjtf DESCRIPTIONS OP NATURAIi SCENEET

jntellectaal oultivation^ Christiamty spread among the Gest^
manic and Celtic races, who had previously been devoted tc>
the worship of nature, and who honoured under rude symbols
its preserving and destrojdng powers, the close and affec^
tionate intercourse with the external world of phsenomena
which we have remarked among the early Christians of
Greece and Italy, as well a^ all endeavours to trace the
action of natural forces, fell gradually imder suspicion, ad
tending towards sorcery. They were therefore regarded £u3
hot less dangerous than the art of the sculptor had appeared
to Tcrtullian, Clemens of Alexandria, and almost all the
inost ancient fathers of the church. In the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, the Councils of Tours (1163) and of
Paris (1209) forbade to monks the sinful reading of writingd
on physical science (®^). These intellectual fetters were
fost broken by the courage of Albertus Magnus and Rogeif
!Bacon j when nature was pronounced pure, and reinstated ill
her ancient rights.

Hitherto we have sought to depict differences which hav6
ishewn themselves in different periods of time ; and in tw6

0

literatures so nearly allied as were those of the Greeks and
the ftomans. But not only are great differences in modeii
^f feeling produced by time, — ^by the changes which it
hrings with it, in forms of govemment> in manners, and
in religious views, — ^but diversities still more striking are
produced by differences of race and of mental disposition,
JBow different in animation and in poetic colouring are the
•manifestations of the love of nature and the descriptions of
natural scenery among the Greeks, the Germans of the
Inorth, the Semitic races, the Persians, and the Indians I

BY THE GERMANS OF THE MIDDLE AOES. SI

An opinion has been repeatedly expressed* that the delifs^ht
m nature felt by northern nations^ and the longing desiro
for the pleasant fields of Italy and Greece^ and for the won-^
derftd luxuriance of tropical vegetation^ are principally to be
ascribed to the long winter's privation of all such enjoy-
Bients. We do not mean to deny that the longing for thq
dimate of palms seems to diminish as we approach the
South of France and the Iberian Peninsula ; but the now
generally employed, and ethnologically correct nan^e of Indo-
peruaanic races, might alone be sufficient to remind us that
^e miist be cautious lest we generalise too much respecting
fce influence thus ascribed to northern winters. , The rich*
^ess of the poetic literature of the Indians teaches us, that
''ritliin and near the tropics south of the great chain of th^
Himalaya, the sight of ever verdant and ever flowering
Aor^sts has at all tinies acted as a powerful stimulus to th0
jo^tic and imaginative faculties of the East-Arianic uatiopa^
wid that these jiations have been more strongly inclined to
picturesque descriptions of nature than the true Germ^niO
y^s, who^ in the far inhospitable north, had extended eveu
Jiito Iceland. A deprivation, or, at least, a cert^-jn inters
tuption of the enjoyment of nature, is not, however, un^
faiown even to the happiegr climates of Southern Asia . the
Masons are there abruptly divided from each other by altefr
Vak periods of fertilising rain and of dusty desolating
widity. Jii the Persian plateau of West Aria, the desert
"often extends in, deep bays far into the interior of the mo^
,»n%g .and fruitful lands. In Middle and in Western
Asia, a margin of forest often forms as it were the shore ctf
> iridely extended inland sea of steppe ; xmd thus the inhabi-
^teats of these hot countries. havo presented to them the

i2 DBSCRlPnONS OJ NATURAL SCEKlM

strongest contrasts of desert barrenness ani luxuriant vege-
tation^ in the same horieontal pkne^ as well an in the vertioal
elevation of the snow-capped mountain chains of India atid
of Afghanistan. Wherever a lively tendency to the contem-*
plation of nature is interwoven with the whole intellectual
cultivation, and with the reUgious feeh'ngs of a nation, great
and striking contrasts of season, of vegetation, or of deVli*
tion, are unfailing stimulants to the poetic imagination*

DeUght in nature, inseparable from the tendency to objeo*
tive contemplation which belongs to the Germanic nations,
shews itself in a high degree in the tearliest poetiy of the
middle ages. Of this the chivalric poems of the Minne*
singers during the Hohenstauffen period afford us numerotii
examples. Many and varied as are its points of contact
Irith the romanesque poetry of the !Proven9als> yet its tfti^
Germanic principle can never be mistaken* A deep felt anil
ell pervading love of nature may be discerned in all Ge:f-
manic manners, habits^ and modes of life; and eveh in t}ie
love of freedom characteristic of the race(*^). IHie wander^
ing Minnesingers, or minstrels, though living much*ift
eburtly circles (from which, indeed, they often spwaig), still
maintained frequent and intimate intercourse with naturt,
and preserved, in all its freshness, an idyllic> and often tt&
elegiac, turn of thought. I avail myself on these subject
of the researches of those most profoundly xet&eA in the
liistory and literature of our German middle ages, my noble*
minded friends Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. **The poets of
Our country of that period,'^^ says the last named writ<t,
*' never gave sepawle descriptions of Ufttural scea^ design^
solely to represent^ in brilliant colours, the impression ttf
ibe landscape ou the mind. Assuredly the eye' and like

BT THE GEBXAK8 OP THE WUHOM AS^. 8t

fediog for nature were not wuting in these old Ocnnaa
maetos ; bat the only expressknis thereof whidi thqr have
left us are such as flowed forth in lyrical strains^ in oonneQ»
tion with the oecarre&ee» or the feeling belonging to the
murratiFe. To begin with the hist and oldest momunents of
the popular qkni^ we do not find my deseriptioii of scenery
either in the Niebelungen or in Gadmn(^)^ even where the
occasion might lead us to look for it. In ttie otherwise
cirGttiDstantial description of tfaa chase during which Sieg«
fiied ia mnrdered, the only natural features mentioned aie
file blooming heather and the cool fountain under the
lindm tree. In Gudrun^ which shews scnnething of a
higher polish^ a finer eje for nature seems also discemible*
When the king^s daughter^ with her companions^ reduced
to slavery^ and compelled to perform menial offices, cany
*the garments of their cruel lord to the sea-shcNce, the time is
indicated as being the season ' when wintor is just dissobr-
jigy and tiie birds begin to be heard^ TP^ ^^ ^^ other
in their songs ; snow and rain still fall, and the hair of the
captive maidens is blown by the rude winds of March.
'When Gudrun, hoping for the abroach of her deliverer^
jcaves her couch, the morning star rises over the sea., which
begins to ^sten in the early dawn, and she distinguishes
the dark helmets and the shields of her frmds/ The words
ne few, but they convey to the fancy a visible picture^ suited
to he^ten the feeling of expectation and suspense previous
tothe occurrence of an important event in the narradveL
la like manner, whai Homer paints the island of the
C^fdops and the gardens of AlcinonSy his purpose is ie
Ixdng beCiore our eyes the luxuriant fertility and abundance
«|^^ wild dvdiing-plaoe of tiie giant monsters, and the

$Mr DBSCBIPTIONS OF NATUIIAL SCENBBT '

nmgnificent residence of a powerful king. Li neither poa^
is the deScriptioa of nature a pnmarj or independenlr
object/'

'^ Opposed to these simple popular ^ics^ are the more

varied and artificial narrations of the chivalrous poets of the

thirteenth century; among whom^ Hartmann von Aue>

Wolfram von Eschenbach^ and Gottfried von Strafiburg (^),

in the early part of the century^ are so much distinguished

above the rest^ that they may be called great and classicaL

It would be easy to bring together from their extensive

writings sufficient proof of their deep feeling for nature^ as -

at breaks forth iu similitudes ; but distinct and independent

descriptions of natural scenes are never found ia their pages;

they never arrest the progress of the action to contemplate

the trauqnil life of nature. How difiPerent is this from thd

writers of modem poetic compositions ! Bernardin de St.-

Pierre nses the occurrences of his narratives only as frames for

his pictures. The lyric poets of the 13th century, especially

wl^en singing of love^ (which is not, however, their constant

theme), speak, indeed, often of 'gentle May,' of the 'sozig

of the nightingale,' ^d ' the dew gUstening on the bells of

heather/ but ^lways in connection with sentiments springing

from other sources, which these outward images serve to

reflect. Thus, when feehngs of sadness are to be indicated^

inention is made of fading leaves, birds whose songs ^atfi

jnute, and the fruits of the field buried in snow. The saim^

jQioughts recur incessantly, not indeed without considerable

variety as well as beauty in the manner ii; which they axe

expressed, Walther von der Vogelweide, and Wolfram von

Eschenbach, the former characterised by tenderness and the

latter by deep thought* have left ns some lyrio pieces

BX 9H» QSBIIAK? OF THE HIDDLB AOSS. 85

HekCDTtttn&tdy only few in number^ which «are deserving o{
honourable mention/'

*'If it be asked whether contact with Southern Italy, and,
Iby lEieans of the crusades, with Asia Minor, Syria, and
Palestine, did not enrich poetic art in Germany with new
imagery drawn from the aspect of nature in more sunny
climes, the question must, on the whole, be answered in the
jiegative. We do not find that acquaintance with the East
chaoged the direction of the minstrel poetry of the period :
the erusadevs had little familiar communieation with the
6arac^[i8, and there was much of repulsion even between the
Finiors of different nations associated for a common cause*
Jriedridi von Hansen, who perished in Barbarossa's army,
was one of the earliest German lyrical poets. His souga
often relate to the crusades, but only to express religious
feelings, or the pains of absence from a beloved object*
Jf ather he nor any of the writers who had taken part in the ex-^
pedifcions to Palestine, as Reinmar the Elder, Eubin, Neidliatt,
and Uhich of Lichteustein, ever take occasion to speak of the
<JQttiJ^Jpy in which they were sojourning, Eeinmar came to'
Syria as a pilgrim, it would appear, in the train of Duke
Leopold YI. of Austria : he complains that the thoughts of
home leave him no peace, and draw him away from God*
Jhe date-tree is occasionally mentioned, in speaking of the
pakns which pious pilgrims should bear on their shoulders,
Ndther do I remember any indication of the loveliness of
Itdiau nature having stimulated the imagination of those
minstrels who crossed the Alps. Walther von der VogeU
wade, though he had wandered hr, had in Italy seen only
tt^Poj butJPreidank(6*) was in Eome, and he merely

M XXBSCRIPnOKS OV KATinUL SOENXftT

lemarks tliat 'grass now grows in th6 palaoes of those wiw
once ruled there/ "

The German Thier-epos^ which mnst not be oonfounded
with the oriental '^fiahle/' originated in habitual associatian
and familiarity with the animal world ; to paint which waa
not, however, its purpose. This peculiar class of poem^
which Jacob Grinmi has treated in so mastarlj a manner, in
the introduction to his edition of Beinhart Fnchs, shews m
cordial delight in nature. Tlie animals, not attached to thsr
ground, excited by passion, and gifted by the poet wiUi
speech, contrast with the still hfe of the silent plants, and
form a constantly active element enlivening the landscape.
f ' The early poetry loves to look on the life of nature with ku*
sian eyes, and lends to animals, and even to {4ants, humaa
thoughts and feelings j giving a fanciful and childlikii
interpretation to all that has been observed of their foimii
and habits. Plants and flowers, gathered and used by god»
and heroes^ are afterwards named from them. In reading
the old German epitt, i^ which hmtes are the actors, we
breathe an air redolent as it were with the sylvan odour» of
•ome ancient forest*' {^)^

Formerly we might have been tempted to number amoog
the memorials of Germanic poetry having reference to
external nature, the supposed remains of the Cdto-Luk
poems, which, for half a century, passed as shapes of mist
from nation to nation, under the name of Ossian; but tfaii
spell has been broken since the complete discovery of Hie
literary &and of the talented Maq>her8on, by his publicatiaa
0f the supposed Gaelic onginal text, now known to haart
been ft letiandation frooBi the ]IE^gUsh work. Thera m%

ftttteed^ ancient Imh FingaUttn songs belonging to the timor
d ChiiAtiamty^ and perhaps not eren reaching as far badt
SB the eighth centory; bnt these popular songs contain
MMe of the scntunental description of nature trhich gives m
Idfi^ictdair charm to Macpherson's poems (^') .

We have already revn8a*ked^ that if sentimental and
rmnantic turns of thdught and feeling in reference to natnie
bdoug in a high d^ree to the Indo-Germanic races of
Worthem Europe, it should not be regarded only as & con-
feqoence of climate ; that is, as arising from a longing desire
Enhanced by prbtracted privation. I have noticed, that the
St5era6ures of India fcnd of Persia, which have unfolded
ttsAaf the gtoirbg brightness o£ southern skies, offer
Jescriptions fiili of charm, not duly of organic, but also of
iioi^anic nature; of the transition from parching drought
fe tfopk^ rain ; of the appearance of the first cloud on the
deep a^ure of the pure sky, and the first rustling sound of
t^ long desired etesian winds in the feathered foliage of the
ittmmits of the pahns.

' It is novr time to enter somewhat more deeply into the
luhjeet of tiie Indian descriptions of nature. "Let ufl
fctt&gine,'' sayis Lassen, in his excellent work on Indian
totitjuiiy (■®), "^a pofrtion of the Aiianic race migrating from
fiirfr primitSve seats, in the north-west, to India: they
^tild there find' themselves surrounded by scenery altob.
lether new, and by vegetation of a striking and luxuriant
<*Stfacteir. The mfldriess of the climate, the fertility of the
fct)fi, the proftisibn of rich gifts which it lavishes almost
*pcnt«neously, wouM aB tend to unpart to the new Bfe rf
fife immi^nts 'a bright uM cJiedM colouring. The origi-
taBy fine organisation of this race, and their high endow-

58 DESCMPTIONS OP NATUHAL SCENTBKT

ments of intellect and disposition^ the genn of all that tb4
nations of India have acMeved of great or iioble> eaarljr
gendered the spectacle of the external world prodactive of #
profound meditation on the forces of nature^ which is thd
groundwork oi^ that contemplative tendency which we findl
intimately interwoven with the earliest Indian poetry. This
prevailing impression on the mental disposition of the
p^ple^ has embodied itself most distinctly in their funda^
piental religious tenets^ in the recognition of the divine ia
nature. Xhe careless ease of outward life likewise favoured
^ indulgence of the contemplative tendency. Who could
have less tp disturb theic meditations on earthly life^ tl^
condition of man after death, and on the divine essence,
than the Indian anchorites^ the Brahmins dwelling in tljk^
forest (^^)^ whose ancient schools constituted one of tb«
most peculiar phsenomena of Indian life^ and jnateriaUy
influenced the mental development of the whole jraoe ?'*
, In referring mnw, as I did in my public lectures under th4
guidance of my brother and of others conversant with
Sanscrit literaturcj to particular instances of the vivid sense
pf natural beauty which frequently breaks forth jn tho
descriptive portions of Indian poetry, I begin with th^
Yedas, or saored writings^ which are the earliest monuments
pf the civilisation of the East Arianic nations^ and are prind^
pally occupied with the adoring veneration of nature. Th^
^ymns of the lEdg-Yeda contain beantiM descriptions of 1^
Jg/ivisk of ^arly dawn, and the appearance of the /^goldeoi
handed'^ sun. The great heraic poem^ 4^ Jlamayana aQ4
i)||i(c^abhar^t£^ are l^'ter than the Vedas, and ^lier than th#
JE^^rana? J and W them the pi»ises ot nature pre conuectf4
with A narrative, agreeably to the essential character of epq

BT THE INDIANS. S9

pdetry. In the Yedas, it is sddom possible to assign the
^particolar locality whence the sacred sages derive their inspi-
faiion; in the heroic poems^ on the contrary^ the descriptions
are mostly individual^ and attached to particolar localities,
^d are animated by that iresher life which is found whete
4he writer has drawn from impressions of which he was him-
self the recipient. Bama's journey from Ayodhya to thd
capital of Dschanaka, his sojourn in the primeval forest, and
Ihe picture of the hermit life of the Fanduides, are all richly
edoured.

The name of the great poet KaUdasa, who flourished at
the highly polished court of Vikramaditya, contempora-
Tieously with Yirgil and Horace, has obtained an early and
extensive celebrity among the nations of the west: nearer
jbur own times, the English and German translations ot
Sacontala have further contributed, in a high degree, to the
f^dmiration so largdy felt for an author, whose tenderness of
ledliog, and rich creative imagination, claim for him a dis^i
tinguished place among the poets of all countries {^), The
jchton of his descriptions of nature is seen also in the lovely
drama of " Vikrama and Urvasi,'' in which <he king wanders
throogh the thickets of the forest in search of the nymph
Urvtei; in the poem of ''The Seasons/' and in *'The
Meghaduta,'' or *' Qoud Messenger/' The last named poeln
paints, with admirable truth to nature, the joyful welcome
:vhich, after a long continuance of tropical drought, haijs
fte first appearance of the rising cloud, which shews that
ttelooked-for $eason of rains is at hand. The exprea-
pion, ''truth to Mature,'' which I have just employed, caft
fionft justify me in venturing to recal, in connection with
!^ Indian poemj a sketchz-of the commeneement of %]ie

-' 1

mnj season (^0 ti^&ced bj myself, ia South Americai «tit fk
tSoBDB when I was wholly unaequainted with JLsUdBMtfp
Me^saduta, even in' Chte/s tmudataon, ^e obseiue
meteorologidal piocesaes which take place in the atmoaphei^
jn the fennation of yapom, in the shape of the doudii, anil
in the Inminaas electric pheenomenai are the same in the
tEopioal it^gions of both continents; and idealising ai^
iirtiose province it is to form the actual into the ideal imig%
wfil surely lose none of its magic power by ^e diric^veij
that the analysing spirit of observation of a later age <xm^
Anns the truth to nature of the older, purely graphical and
poetical representation*

We pass from the East Arians, or the Brahmimo In^aas^
woA their stroaigjy marked sense of picturesque beauty in
iiatHre(^), to the West Ariansj or Persians, who had
migrated into the uat&em country €i the Zend, and weia
origmaUy disposed to combine with the dnalistis belief te
Ormnzd and Ahrimanes a qnritualised veneration <tf natHse.
What we term Persian hterature doesinot i«aeh farther bnek
than the period of the Sassanides ; the older ppetic memcnnide
hffre perkhed ; and it wse not until the country bad been sub*
jugated by the Arabs, aiid the diaracteiistios of its earlier i^ht*

bitants in grest messure obliterated^ that it regained a national
literature, under the Samanides, Gasasirides, and SeUsdmkL

The flourishing period of its poetry, fran Tirdnsi to Hafo* and

Bschami, can hardly be said to have lasted four <»r flva em^

iuries, and extends but little beyond ^ ^och id Voeoo de

<iama. Hie lilevaiUues of Persia and of India are sepemted

liy time as wdl as by.spaoe ; the Persian bekngbg to the

auiddle ages, while the greult literature of India bdsngi

itnctly to antiqidlty. Li tho Iraufaian hjghland%

nst present the luxumnoe of arborescent vegetation, or
At dhmrable variety of form and colour, which adorn the
mil of Hindostan. The Yindli^ya chain, which was long the
hoimdfljj of the East Arianic nations, is stall within the
tocrid eone, while the whole of Penria is sitnated beyond the
Iropies, sad its poetic literature even belongs in parfc to the
Aortittni soil of Balkh and Fergana. The four paradises
edebn^ed by •the Persian poets (^3), were the pleasant valley
ef So^id near Samareand, Masehanrad near Hanntdan^
JAa'M, Bowan near Kal'eh SoSd in Pars, and Ghute tibe
0aia of Bamaeeus. Both Iran aad.Tnran are wantiio^ a
Ae ifivaa scoieiy and the hermit life of the forest which
Mvenced so powerfa% the imaginations €lt tiie Indian
fods. Gsrdeas refreshed by springing fonatains, and fllbd
with rose bushes and fruit trees, could ill rqilaoe the wild
md grand BBeamj iA Hindostan. Ho wonder, tiierefore,
flat tiie desevipiive poetry of Perm has less life and fredi*
nss, and is enm qIR^tl tan», and full of artificial ornament*
flnc^ in the jn%ni«it of the Persiaiis, tiie highest meed of
praise is given to that whidi we term sprigfatlinefls said wi^
0« adniEBtiaii must be limited to the produotivmiess of
1km poets, and to the mflaite varidy of foims(M) whicfa
tts suae rndsnals assume under Iheir hands : we miss
ii^hem depth iBid eamestnass of feeling.

in the natacmal epc of Pasna, Krdtbsfs fibahnameb^
A6 40iini8B of the nacrative is but i^u^fy iatermpted by
dnsripiioAs of l^dseiqpe. ^e praises of the coast land of
Mtamdenm, patdnto the mouHi of a wsiidermg bard^ sod
^iiwribing tiie mildmias of its climate, and the vigomr of ik
fvyiatien, appear to me to bave mnch gmce and <chac9Bt
^— *• high jhgpee ef local trutL In that Jtoiy, t}|e Uag

42 DP VCEIFHONS OTf KATOlBAt SCBNEBT

(Kei Kawuf^) is induced by the description to undertake
expeditiori to the Caspian, and to attempt a new conquest C)^
Enweri, Dschelaleddin Eumi (who is considered the greatert
mystic poet of the East)^ Adhad, and the half .Indian Feisi^
have written poems Crft spring, parts of which breatiie poefcic
life and freshness, although in other parts our ^enjoym^t id
often nnpleasingly disturbed by petty efforts in plays on word*
and artificial comparisons (^6). Joseph von^ Hammer^ ut
his great Work on the history of Persian poetry, remarks ot
Sadi, in the Bostan and Gulistan (Eruit and Eose Gardens)^
aid ot HafiB, whose joyous philosophy of life has been com^
pared Mth that of Horace, that we find in the first an
ethical teajcher, and in the love songs of the second, lyrical
fights of no mean beauty ; but that in both the descripti<»Mi
of nature are too often marred and disfigured by tur^diij
arid'* false ornament (^7). The favourite subject of Persian
poetry, the loves of the nightingale and the rose, is weaa-»
some, jfrom its perpetual recurrence; and the genuine love
pf 'tiature is stifled in the East under the conventional
prettinesses'of the' language of flowers.

WTien we proceed northwards from the Iraunian h%Iilandfl
thfdngh Turan (in the Zend Tuirja) (6®), into the chain of
Jthe Ural which forms the boundary between Europe aod
Asia, we find ourselves in' the early seat of the Finnish races $
for' the Ural is as deserving of the title of the ancient land
of the Fins as the Altai is of that of the Turks. AmoBg
the-Firis who have settled far to the west in European low*
lands,* Elf as Lonnrot has collected, from the. lips of the
Kafelians and the country people of Olonetz, a great
number of Finnish songs, in which Jacob Grimm (<*)
find!, -itt regard to natuire^ a tone of emotion and of xeveij^

.d

:•);

I

9i THX. HBSBSWH 49

iik6 iritii except ia tndian poetiy. Ajb oliL egm
rf nearly threv tiiaufluid liiws, wluch is ooeapied wiHk
wm beihreenr Urn lins and ihe Ltppii and th« jEbi*
aaaft ftte of a godlike heio' noned Yamo, amtaana 4
ffaMRt^dtaen^oai of tiia ntcal Hfe ol the Fins; espedailf
irita!ie*(^ wik of tiie ixonworkeor, Emanoe^ aends her floaka
iel^tlia facesiy niih. ptag^eis far timr safegnavd. f aw maaa
|Man^ more nsmarkable gcadationa in the oharaetar at tiiair
Msband therduectiDa of their ftdinga, aa dateniBned hf
sarribudo, by idld aad warlike habits^ or hf peraaverixg
eSbrte for pcfitScal freedom, tiuin the met of Jhm, iMk ita
flMhnjMons speaking Mndred languages^ I aliude to the
iMrpaacefal rorai population among niiom" &e. ^c jual
witietted iras dtscover ed^ — ^ta tiie Hn]is> (long oonftmiideA
vi& fte Moogcdb^) who ov^ron tbe BoBMai woxld^— aoi
tea greafc and noble people, the l^igjara

^ Iweure seen tiiat the vividness of the feelmgwitti whid^
wttffe is tegavded, and ti)e form in whieh tjuiiftdhtg mni*
fnte itself, are influenced by differences of raee^ by the par*
teilar character of tiie country, by the ccmstitation of Hie
sMst; and by the tone of idigicHis foefing ; taxi we hxm
tsMd this influeiice in the natioiw ol Europe, and in tlieaei
^'VHkitoA isesceni in Asia (the Indiana and f^gmotljl
^ Jbiaidc or Indo-Gennanie origin* Bum^ frcntt
ttence to the Sendtie er ktomt^ race, wv dhuovav
ift-iihe (ddest and most venerable memorkJa in wJbieh iftia
toiK- and tendency of feheir poetry and m&pBaAm u^ ibk^
j^BJ^, unquestionable evidencea of a profound aenajb(3ilj|r
wftsttave^

This feefing manifests itself with jrrondear and mAffrntu^i
^litstocal ]tamitives> in hymns and ^oral aoi^, in tM
•^dour of lyric poaftij in the Psakis^ and m Ibe aehocia

VOL, ir. ^

1

Sif DBSCmPTlOHS OF NATUILAL SClfiNBBT '

laagnificent residence of a powerful king. Li neither po^t
is the description of nature a primary or independent
object."

'^Opposed to these siniple popular epics^ are the more
Varied and artificial narrations of the chivalrous poets of the
thirteenth century; among whom^ Hartmann von Aue^
Wolfram yon Eschenbach, and Gottfried von Strasburg (^),
in the early part of the century, are so much distinguished
above the rest, that they may be called great and classicaL
It would be easy to bring together from their extensive
writings sufficient proof of their deep feeling for nature, as *
at breaks forth in similitudes ; but distinct and independent
descriptions of natural scenes are never found in tiieir pages^
they never arrest the progress of the action to contemplate
the tranquil life of nature. How diflferent is this from the
writers of modern poetic compositions ! Bernardin de St.*-
Kerre uses the occurrences of his narratives only as frames fof
liis pictures. The lyric poets of the 13th century, especially
wl^en singing of love, (which is not, however, their constant
theme), speak, indeed, often of ' gentle May,' of the ^ song
of the nightingale,' ^nd ' the dew glistening on the bells of.
heathey,' but pi ways in connection with sentiments springing
from other sources, which these outward images serve to
reflect. Thus, when feeHngs of sadness are to be indicated,
Jnention is made of fading leaves, birds whose songs w:^
mute, and the fruits of the field buried in snow. The sam^
jthoughts recur incessantly, not indeed without considerable
variety a^ well as beauty in the manner iij which they are
expressed, Walther von der Yogelweide, and Wolfram vou s
3Eschenbach, the former characterised by tenderness and the
]atter by deep thought, bave left us some lyrio piec0%

HJ THB eSRHAirS OF THE MIDDL1S A0ES. 85

0l(brtan&tdi7 only few iu uumb^, which are deserving of
honourable mention/'

^' If it be asked whether contact with Southern Italy^ and,
lay means of the crusades^ with Asia Minor, Syria, and
Palestine, did not enrich poetic art in Germany with new
imagery drawn from the aspect of nature in more sunny
climes, the question must, on the whole, be answered in the
^negative. We do not find that acquaintance with the East
(^hanged the direction of the minstrel poetry of the period:
the crusaders had httle familiar communication with the
8arac«i8, and there was much of repulsion even between the
ivirriors of different nations associated for a common cause.
fiiedri(^ von Hansen, who perished in Barbarossa's army,
iras one of the earliest Grerman lyrical poets. His songs
often relate to the crusades, but only to express religious
feelings, or the pains of absence from a beloved object,
^eith^ he nor any of the writers who had taken part in the ex<^
peditions to Palestine, as fieinmar the Elder, Bubin, Neidliart,
and Ulrich of Lichtenstein, ever take occasion to speak of tlie
country in which they were sojourning. Beinmar came to
Syria as a pilgrim, it would appear, in the train of Duke
Leopcdd YI. of Austria : he complains that the thouglits of
home leave him no peace, and draw him away from God.
The date-tree is occasionally mentioned, in speaking of the
pahns which pious pilgrims should bear on their shoulders,
Neither do I remember any indication of the loveliness of
Itdian nature having stimulated the imagination of those
minstreLs who crossed the Alps. Walther von der VogeU
wade, though he had wandered far, had in Italy seen only
tbQ Po; but.Preidank(^) was in Bome, and he merely

26 DESCRIFTIONS OF NATUEAL SCENEUT

greatness and goodness of the Creator from the order of the
universe and the beauty of nature ; and this desire to glorify
the Deity through his worts, favoured a disposition for
natural descriptions. We find the earliest and most detailed
instances of this kind in the writings of Minucius Pelix^ a
rhetorician and advocate living in Eome in the beginning
of the third century, and a contemporary of Tertullian and
Philostratus. We follow him with pleasure in the evening .
twilight to the' sea shore near Ostia, which, indeed, he
describes as more picturesque, and more favourable to
health, than we now find it. The religious discourse
entitled " Octavius^^ is a spirited defence of the new faith
against the attacks of a heathen friend (**).

This is the place for introducing from the Greek fathers of
the church extracts descriptive of natural scenes, which are
probably less known to my readers than are the evidences of
the ancient Italian love for a rural life contained in Eoman
literature. I will begin with a letter of the great Basil,
which has long been an especial favourite with me. Basil,
who was a native of Cesarea in Cappadocia, left the pleasures
of Athens when little more than thirty years of age, and,
having already visited the Clnistian hermitages of Coelo-
Syria and Upper Egypt, withdrew, like the Essenes and
Therapeuti before Cliristianity, into a wilderness adjacent to
the Armenian river Iris. His second brother, Naucratius (**),
had been drowned tjiere while engaged in fishing, after
leading for five years the life of a rigid anchorite. Basil
writes to his friend Gregory of Nazianzum, " I believe I
have at last found the end of my wanderings : my hopes of
uniting myself with thee — my pleasing dreams, I should
rather say, for the hopes of men have been justly callfid

BT THB BABLT OHBISTIANa* • if

I

waking dreams, — ^have remaiiied nnfiilfilled. God has
eoosed me to find a place such as has often hovered before
the fancy of ns both; and that which imagination shewed
us afar off, I now see present before me. A high monntsdn,
clothed with thick forest, is watered towards the north by
fresh and ever flowing streams ; and at the foot of th^
mountain extends a wide plain, which these streams render
fruitful. The surrounding forest, in which grow many kmda
of trees, shuts me in as in a strong fortress. This wilder*
ness is bounded by two deep ravines ; on one side the river„
precipitating itself foaming from the mountain, forms an-
ohstaclo difficult to overcome ; and the other side is enclosed
by a broad range of hiUs. My hut is so placed on the
summit of the mountain, that I overlook the extensive plain;
and the whole course of the Iris^ which is both mor^
beautifcd, and more abundant in its waters, than the
Stiymon near AmphipoKs. The river of my wilderness,
wluch is more rapid than any which I have ever seen, breaks
against the jutting precipice, and throws itself foaming into
the deep pool below — to the mountain traveller an object oi|
^hich he gazes with delight and admiration, and valuable
to the native for the many fish which it affords. Shall I
describe to thee the fertilising vapours rising from the
moist earthy and the cool breezes from the broken wat/7?
f hall I speak of the lovely song of the birds, and of the
profusion of flowers? What charms me most of all is iihf
imdisturbed tranquillity of the district : it is only visgte4
occasionally by hunters; for my wilderness feeds deer and
lierds of wild goats, not your bears and your wolves. How
lihould X exchange any other place ior this ! Alcmseoi^
when he had found the Eehinades^ would not wand^

VOL. II, ^

ferthei!^ (^^). In this simpte descriptimi el the landMSft
mi <^ the life of the forest, theie speak feelings more intb
mately allied to those of modem times than any thing that
Greek and Boman antiquity have bequeathed to us. Erom
&e lonely mountam hut to which Basihus had retired^ the
«ye looks down on the humid roof of fidbiage of the forest ho*
neath ; the resting-plaoe for which he and his Mend Gregoijr
^ Nazianzum (*^) have so long panted is at last, found.
Die sportive allusion at the dose to the poetic mythua ol
Alcmseon sounds hke a distant lingmi^ eoho^ i^MBating in
the Christian world accents belonging to that whadi had
preceded it.

Basii^s Homilies on the Hexaemeron also beer witness to
his love of nature. He describes the mildness ci the eon<*
fctantly serene nights of Asia Minor^ wher^ aoeording to his
expression^ the stars^ ^ those eternal flowers of hBBkVfm/'
raise the spirit of man &om the visibk to the LivisiblB (^^
'When^ in speaking of the cieation of the world, he desiies
to praise the beauty of Uie sea, he describes the aapact
of Uie boundkss plain of waters in its differoxt and vstf*
ing conditions — ^how, when gently agitated by milAfr*
breathing airs, it gives back fiie varied hues of heaven, wnr
faiitiiite, now in Une, and now in roseate li^; andcansaes
t3ie rfiore in pcaceftJ jJay V

Mf^ find in Gt^i^oiy of Nyssa, the brother of Basil, At
Imme deli^ in natore, Hie same sentimental and partly
is^nchoiy vran. ^ 'Whm/* he exelams, ^ I b^ld cadi
arnggy MSi, emsh valley, and eadi pban clothed wztii fi&i^
kpi&gii^ grass; the varied foliage miOi wUdi ths treesim
•domed; at my feet tile lified to which tailbfae has gma «
TiiwMt do^per^ ^ s#ed; fragrance, luid of beaaty of «oloQr|

mi in li&o jyMwioe tbf «(m^ tovards which tha vanderirig
cfefid it fiiUag^^m; wmd !» po9«e93ed with » wdneis which
is sot devoid of enjoymmti^ Wxm, lA ftutumii, the fruiti
imfpwf, the kavai M, wid tha braacbey of the treesi
itrii^wd of their ora»nimt0;> h»Qg lifdosa^ in viewing thi*
perpetuid i»d fegulfir\y veoumng alternation the mind
bacomos abporbed in the contemplation^ and r^pt as it
wero in iiniaon with the many-voiced chorna of the woo*
drona fofoea af natoro, Wbgao gazea thorough these with
tiie iawwrd leye of t%jo^ feels the litUenesa of man in tha
gyaate^sa of the wivci^'^ (^9),

While tha early Christian Greeks were thns hit hy
g}orifymg God in a loving contamplation of natnrej to poetie
daaeii^tiona ot her variona beanty^ they we^ at the same
tima &]litf co«t»npt for all w^Jcs of human art* We find jn
Cliiyaoatom many auch pasiaages as these : ''when thou lookest
fm Urn giitkmsi buildings, if the ranges of cohimns would
aeduce thy hearty turn quickly to contempl^ the vaul^ of
heaven and the open fields^ with the flocks grazing by the
«ater'a aide. Who but despises all that art can shew whilst
lie gszea at early morn, an4> i^ the sil^ce of tbp h^^rt^
M iha rising aun ppoxing hia golden light upon the
Mrtb; or when seated by th^ ^d^ of a fountain in tha cool
graasj or in the d^rk shade of thiek Mf^, his «|ye feeda
tba while on tb^ wida«fsi^teaded prpq^t fy^ vanishing in the
diataoige'' P)^ Aatioch waa al^ this period ^ui^onndad by
hKm^»9!f», in one of which fPkrj¥>fston dwelt r it mj^l^
fayra aeemed that eloquaiw had Wd ag^n hm i^mfS9t$
Ireadomsf on r^turpiog to the bosom, of natura in the. th^i^
tmofA-mm^ ipouiitam. districts of &jm aud Am Mw^f
J^t whw, doling tibe a^sepeiM^ W^f 99, hostile td all

iStf DBSCEIPTIONS OP NATtJRAL SCEJTBET

intellectual cultivation, Christianity spread among the Grer*
manic and Celtic races, who had previously been devoted ix^
the worship of nature, and who honoured under rude symboli
its preserving and destroying powers, the close and affec->
tionate intercourse with the external world of phsenomena
which we have remarked among the early Christians of
Greece and Italy^ as well a^ all endeavours to trace the
action of natural forces, fell gradually under suspicion, ad
fending towards sorcery. They were therefore regarded as
tot less dangerous than the art of the sculptor had appealed
to Tcrtullian, Clemens of Alexandria, and almost all the
inost ancient fathers of the church. In the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, the Councils of Tours (1163) and of
Paris (1209) forbade to monks the sinful reading of writing^
on physical science (^^). These intellectual fetters Were
first broken by the courage of Albeiius Magnus and Rogef
!Bacon ; when nature was pronounced pure, and reinstated in
her ancient rights.

IP

Hitherto we have sought to depict differences which hav6
flhewn themselves in different periods of time ; and in tw6
literatures so nearlv allied as were those of the Greets and
the Eomans. But not only are great differences in model^i
of feeling produced by time, — ^by the changes whicb it
brings with it, in forms of government, in manners, and
in religious views, — ^but diversities still more striking are
produced by differences of race and of mental disposition.
JEow different in animation and in poetic colouring are the
*inanifestations of the love of nature and the descriptions 6t
natural scenery among the Greeks, the Germans of the
iiorth, the Semitic races, the Persians, and the Indians!

BY THE OERMANS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 31

An ppmion has been repeatedly expressed, that the delight
in, iiatiure felt by northern nations^ and the longing desiro
for the pleasant fields of Italy and Greece^ and for the won«t
derful luxuriance of tropical vegetiation, are principally to be
ascribed to the long winter's privation of all such enjoy-
ments. We do not mean to deny that the longing for thq
climate of palms seems to diminish as we approach the
South of France and the Iberian Peninsula ; but the now
generally employed, and ethnologically correct nan^e of Indo-
Germanic races, might alone be suf&cient to remind us that
we must be cautious lest we generalise too much respecting
the influence thus ascribed to northern winters. . The rich*
ness of the poetic literature of the Indians teaches us, that
within and near the tropics south of the great chain of th^
Himalaya, the sight of ever verdant and ever flowering
forests has at aQ times acted as a powerful stimulus to th^
poetic and imaginative faculties of the East-Arianic natiops^
end that these ^ations have been more strongly incliqed to
picturesque descriptions of nature than th^ true Germ^niO
yaees, who^ in the far inhospitable north, had extended evei
into Iceland. A deprivg^tion, or, at least, a ceri^ain ivX^Xp
ruption of the enjoyment of nature, is not, however, un^
known even to the happiej climate? of Southern A^ia . the
reasons are there abruptly divided from each other by altefr
liate periods of fi^tilising rain and of dusty desolating
aridity. Jn the Persian plateau of West Aria, the deserfj
'often extends in. deep bays far into the interior of the mo*
,ipniiluig .and fruitful lands, In Middle and ii^ Western
A^ia, a margin of forest often forms as it were the shore ctf
ji iRdely extenjded inland sea of steppe ; jand thus the inhabi-
^tauta of these hot countries .have presented to them the

i2 DlSSCftlPnONS OF NATUEaL SCESVtit

strongest contrasts of desert barrenness and Iniimant veg^
tation^ in the same horizontal plane^ as well asi m the vertfoal
elevation of the snow-capped mountain chains of Lidia and
of Afghanistan. Wherever a lively tendency to the contem<»
plation of nature is interwoven with the whole intellectttat
cultivation^ and with the reh'gious feelings of a nation^ great
and striking contrasts of season^ of vegetation, or of elevft*
tion, are unfailing stimulants to the poetic imagination^

DeKght in nature, inseparable from the tendency to objeo*
iive contemplation which belongs to the Germatiid nations,
shews itself in a high degree in the tsarliest poetiy of thft
middle ages. Of this the chivalric poems of the Minne*
singers during the HohenstaufTen period afford us numeroui
examples. Many and varied as are its pointei of contact
With the romanesque poetry df the Proven9aIs, yel its tm%
Germanic principle can never be mistaken. A deep felt nxA
flU pervading love of nature may be discerned in aQ Gef«>
tnanic manners, habits, and modes of life; and even in iStm
love of freedom characteristic of the race(*^). The wander^
ing Minnesingers, or minstrels, though living much^iA
courtly circles (from which, indeed, they often sprwig), stiD.
maintained frequent and intimate intercourse with nature,
and preserved, in all its freshness, an idyllic^ and often tm
elegiac, turn of thought. I avail myself on these subjects
of the researches of those most profoundly versed in Hlft
history and literature of our German middle ages, my noblfi*
minded friends Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. **The poets of
our country of that period,'^ says the last named writef,
*^neveir gave s^arate descriptions of uatural scenery design^
solely to represent, in brilliant colour, tlie impresston tf
the landscape ou the mind. Assttfedly the tye' and ifte

BT THE GlSBKiKS OF THE MOfDIM AGBS. St

ieding for nature were not wuEiting in tiiese old Gcrmsa
XDsesbexs ; but the only expressions tliereof whidbi they h&Y^
left us are such as flowed forth in lyrical strains^ in conneiv
tion with the oecnrr^iees or the feeling belonging to the
narrative. To begin with the b6st and oldest moniunents of
the popular epos^ we do not find any description of scenery
either in the Niebelungen or in Gadmn(^), even where the
occasion might lead us to look for it. In the otherwise
QTGiiimatantial description of t\m chase during which Sieg«
iried is murdered^ the ooly natural features mentioned are
the blooming heather and the oool fountain under the
linden tree. In Gudrun, which shews something of a
ingher pohsh^ a finer eye for nature seems also discernible^
When the king's daughter, with her compaoions, reduced
to slavery, and compelled to perf(»*m menial offices, cany
•the garments of their cruel lord to the sea-sh<»e, the time is
indicfited «s being the season ' when winter is just dissohr-
JBgy and ilie birds begin to be heard, vying with eadi other
in their soags ; snow and rain still fall^ and th^ hair o( the
captive maidens is blown by the rude winds of March.
"Wheal Gudnm, hoping for the approach of her deUverer^
Jbeaves her couch, the morning star rises ova: the sea, which
begins to ghsten in the early dawn, and she distmgnishes
the dark helmets and the shields of her frknds.' The words
«e few, but they convey to the fancy a visible picture, suited
to heighten the feeling of expectation and suspense previous
to the ocGorrence of an important event in the narrative*
Jm like manner, whcxL Homer paints the island of the
. C^^dops and the gardens of Alcinons, his purpose is to
Jn^iqg before our ey^ the hixuriant fertility and abundance
^(ffHy^wM, dvdling-plaoe of tiie giant monsters^ and this

Si DISSGIOFrniKS of NATUAAL SCENBSt '

laagnificent residence of a powearf al king. Li neither poefc
is the description of nature a primary or independent
object/^

'^ Opposed to these simple popular ^ics^ are the more

Varied and artificial narrations of the chivalrous poets of the

thirteenth century; among whom, Hartmann von Aue>

Wolfram von Eschenbach, and Gottfried von Strasburg (^),

in the early part of the century, are so much distinguished

above the rest, that they may be called great and classicaL

It would be easy to bring together from their extensive

^writings sufiBcient proof of their deep feeling for nature, as *

it breaks forth in similitudes; but distinct and independient

descriptions of uatural scenes are never found in their pages;

they never arrest the progress of the action to contemplate

the tranquil life of nature. How different is this from the

writers of modem poetic compositions ! Bernardin de St.-

Pierre uses the occurrences of his narratives only as frames for

liis pictures. The lyric poets of the 13th century, especially

ivl^en singing of love> (which is not, however, their constant

theme), speak, indeed, often of 'gentle May,^ of the ^song

of the nightingale,' ^d ^ the dew glistening on the beUs of

Jieathey,' but plways iu connection with sentiments springing

firom other sources, which these outward images serve to

reflect. Thus, when feelings of sadness are to be indicated,

jnention is made of fading leaves, birds whose songs ^^

mute, and the fruits of the field buried in snow. The same

jthoughts recur incessantly, not indeed without considerable

yaariety a^ well as beauty in the manner ii; which they are

expressed, Walther von der Yogelweide, and Wolfram vou

Eschenbach, the former characterised by tenderness and the

latter by deep thought, have left us some lyrio piece%

VX THS emiUAVrs OF THE MIBBLE AGES. 8S

ISifDTtttiiatdy only few in number^ which are deservmg of

liDBOTixable mention/'

^' If it be asked whether contact with Southern Italy, and,
f)f means of the arusades, with Asia Minor, Syria, and
Palestine, did not enrich poetic art in Germany with new
imagery drawn from the aspect of nature in more sunny
* fjimes, the question most, on the whole, be answered in the
negative. We do not find that acquaintance with the East
changed the direction of the minstrel poetry of the period:
thfi crusaders had httle famiUar communication with the
Saarac^is, and there was much of repulsion even between the
lirarriors of different nations associated for a common cause,
fiiedrieh von Hansen, who perished in Barbarossa's army,
iras one of the earliest German lyrical poets. His songs
often relate to the crusades, but only to express religious
feelings, or the pains of absence from a beloved object.
I^^either he nor any of the writers who had taken part in the ex^
peditions to Palestine, as Beinmar the Elder, Eubin, Neidhart,
and Ulrich of Lichteustein, ever take occasion to speak of the
coxairj in which they were sojourning. Beinmar came to
Syria as a pilgrim, it would appear, in the train of Duke
Leopold yi. of Austria : he complains that the thoughts of
home leave him no peace, and draw him away from God»
The date-tree is occasionally mentioned, in speaking of the
palms which pious pilgrims should bear on their shoulders.
Neither do I remember any indication of the loveliness of
Italian nature having stimulated the imagination of those
minstrels who crossed the Alps. Walther von der VogeU
wmde, though he had wandered far, had in Italy seen only

^Vo; but ;Preidank(s*) was in Borne, and he merely

M BBSCKIFnONS OV VATUBAL 8GENXBT

lemarkfl tliat 'grass nofw grows in the palaoes of those wte
once ruled there/ ^

The German Thier-epos, which must not be oonfotmded
with the oriental " fable/' originated in habitual associatum
and familiarity with the animal world; to paint which waa
Boi^ however, its purpose. This peculiar class of poem,
which Jacob Grimm has treated in so masterly a manner, ia
the introduction to his edition of Beinhart Fnchs, shews ft
cordial delight in nature. The animals, not attached to thtf
ground, excited by passion, and gifted by the poet with
speech, contrast with the still life of the silent plants, and
fenn a constantly active element enUvening the landscapes
f'The early poetry loves to look on the life of nature with ka«
©an eyes, aud lends to animals, and even to^nts, hmn«m
thoughts and feelings) giving a &ncifiil and childlike
interpretation to all that has been observed of their fosms
■nd habits. Plants and flowers, gathered and used by god»
and heroes^ are afterwards named from them. In reading
the old German epi% in which brutes are the actors, wo
breathe an air redolent as it were with the sylvan odours of
some ancient forest*' (®^).

Formerly we might have been tempted to number among
the memorials of Germanic poetry having reference ta
external nature^ the supposed remains of the Cdto-IiiA
poems, which, for half a century, passed as shapes of mist
from nation to nation, under the name of Ossian ; but tfaa
epell has been broken since the complete discovery of tlia
literary fraud of the talented Macpherson, by his pubticatiGai
of the supposed Gaelic original text, now known to bwm
been a Ketnuudation from the English work. There

BT TSX UmiAKS, 8f

fttileed^ ancient Irish FingaUan songB bdoDging to the tiitiar
of Christiamly, and perhaps not eren reaching as fat badt
as tiie eighth century; bat these popular songs contain
li^e of the sentimental description at nature which gives m
pOK^ctilaar charm to Macpherson's poems (*^).

"We have already remarked^ that if sentimental and

romantic tarns of thought and feeling in reference to nature

belong in a high d^:ree to the Indo-Germanic races of

Korthem Enrope, it should not be regarded only as a con*

ieqoenoe of dimote; that is^ as arising from a longing desiro

^iuhanced by prbtracted privation. I have noticed, that the

Storatures of India kai of Persia, which have unfolded

tHixst the glowing brightness oi southern skies, offer

descriptions fiill of chami, not 6nly of oi^anic, but also of

inorganic nature; of the transition from parching drought

fe tropical rain ; of the appearance of the first cloud on the

deep a2are of the pure sky, and the first rustling sound of

fte long desired etesian winds in the feathered fiDliage of the

iimnmits of the palms.

' UrB now lime to enter somewhat more deeply into the
lubject of the Indian descriptions of nature. "Let ua
fcnagine,^' says Lassen, in his excellent work on Indian
ttitiquity (■*), "a pofrtionof the Arianic race migrating from
Hidr primifive seats, in the north-west, to India: they
%otild there find' themselves surrounded by scenery altOi^
gethet new, and by vegetation of a striking and luxuriant
tfcawocter. The ndldness of the climate, the fisrtility of the
ioil, the profiision of rich gifts which it lavishes almost
ipontaneottsly, wouM aQ tend to impart to the new life of
fte immigrants a bright aid cheetftil colouring. The origi-
tafiy fine organisation of this race, and their h^ endow-

58 DESCEIPTXONS OP NATTJUAL SCENERY

xnents of intellect and disposition^ the germ of all that Hiui
nations of India hav^ achieved of great or noble^ eaorljr
^rendered the spectacle of the external world productive of #
profound meditation on the forces of nature^ which is th^
groundwork oi that contemplative tendency which we fin4
intimately interwoven with the earliest Indian poetry. This
prevailing impression on the mental disposition of the
p^plc;, has embodied itself ^lost distinctly in their funda^
jnental religious tenets^ in the recognition of the divine ia,
nature. Xhe careless ease of outward life likewise favoured
tlia indidgence of the contemplative tendency. Who could
have less to disturb their meditations on earthly life^ tb^
condition of man after deatk and on the divine essence. .
than the Indian anchorites^ the Brahmins dwelling in th^
forest (^^), whose ancient schools constituted one of the
Vfiost peculiar pheenomena of Indian lifcj and materially
influenced the mental development of the whole race?^'
, In referring mtw, as I did in my public lectures under tbi
guidance of my brother and of others conversant witb
Sanscrit literatQrCj to particular instances of the vivid s^mse
pf natural beauty which frequently breaks forth in the
descriptive portions of Indian poetryj I begin with thi)
Yedasj or sacred writings^ which are the earliest monumenfe
pf the civilisation of the East Arianic nations, and areprind^
pally occupied with the adoring veneration of nature. Thi^
Jiymns of the Itdg-Yeda contain beauti&l descriptions of thi)
^lijLsb of ^y dawn, and the appearance of the /' goldeih
jianded'^ sun^ The great heroic poem^ ^ llamayana aii4
Ikfahabhars^tf^ are later than the Yedas^ and earlier than tb^ "
JPoranas j and W them the praise o£ nature are connect
with a narrative^ agreeably to the essential character of epif

BT THE INDIANS. S9

pdehy. In the Yedas, it is sddom possible to assign the
•particular locality wh^M^ the sacred sages derive their inspi-
foiion; in the heroic poems^ on the cohtraryi the descriptioBs
are mostly individual, and attached to particular localities,
"^nd are animated hj that iresher life which is found where
4he writer has drawn from impressions of which he was him-
self the recipient. Bama's journey from Ayodhya to the
capital of Dschanaka, his sojourn in the primeval forest, and
the picture of the hermit life of the Fanduides, are all richly
eolonred.

' The name of the great poet KaUdasa, who flourished aft
the highly polished court of Vikramaditya, contempora-
;neously with Yirgil and Horace, has obtained an early and
extensive celebrity among the nations of the west: neara
jbui^ own times, the English and German translations ol
fiacontala have further contributed, in a high degree, to the
l^iration so largdy felt for an author, whose tenderness of
feeling, and rich creative imagination, claim for him a dis^
^guished place among the poets of all countries (^). The
jcharm of his descriptions of nature is seen also in the lovely
dtama of '' Yikrama and XJrvasi,'' in which the king wanders
tiiroogh the thickets of the forest in search of the nymph
Urvssi; in the poem of ^'The Seasons;^' and in *^The
Meghaduta,'' or '* Oloud Messenger/' The last named poem
piaU, with admirable truth to nature, the joyful welcome
which, after a long continuance of tropical drought, haild
;fche first appearance of the rising cloud, which shews that
Ifhe looked-for Reason of cains is at hand, ^e expreB*
pmig ''truth to liature,"' which I have just employed, can
fdone justify me in venturing to recal, in connection with
^lie Indian poemj a sketch^ of the commencement of the

40 nBscaipainn or huvsal scknbxt

niay aeaaon (^i) traced bf mjRelf, in Sonth America, at fk
time when I vaa wholly unacqiuinted with KslidaMi'p
Ueghadots, even in' ChSz/s tnuulation. The obwiue
meteoK^ogioal procestea which take place in the atnu)^ar%
in the fozmation of vapour, in the shape of Uie doudsj tai
n the Inminoui electric phnuouena, u« the Hme in tim
tcopicBl legionB of both oontinmti; and ideali«ing «i^
atose province it is to form the adual into the ideal inug^
will lurc^ lose noufl of its magic power bf the m»a>va^
that the analysing spirit of observatioa of a later age ocm*-
trma iha truth to nttore of the older, purely graphical and
pootical r^eMutation.

We pass from the £a8t Arians, or the Brahminic Indimi^
Mtd theii sbKWgjy marked sense of picturesque beauty in
iiBtate(**}, to the West Ariana, or Fersi«ii, who htd
BUgnted into tiu D(»tbem conntry of the Zend, aud w«m
originally dispoied to combine with the dnalistic belief fai
Ormozd and Ahrimanes a ^liritiulified veneratioiL of catme*
Wbat we t«nn Penian litoratiir« doea not reach farther biM^
than the period of the SasoauideB ; Ihe older poetie menMaiela
haira perished; anditwaanotaidiltlieeouiitrf IndbeeHsa))-
jngated by the Arabs, aiid the characteiistias of its earlier mhft*
tntanti in groat measnre obliterated, that it regained a oatieRal
litentuie, under tlie SuDaiddMj Gasmvides, and BeldschnU>
Ite flmirie}iii^ period of its poetiy, frtHn iFirdusi to Hafiff and
Dac^ami, «an hardly be aaid to bave ketod fftor or flva em-
4uTies, crad extends but littb beyond the ^o^ «f V»od de
Oama- The lil(ratui«s of Persia and of India are stQiaraUcI
hy time as w^ as by. qnce ; the Perriui bdongLog to the
■addle ages, while the gieKt litcalwe of India bdcB^l
■trictJy to anticpul^. Li tha I»Mihii»« k^;MaDda» ■etas

not present; the laxuriance of arborescent regetationi or

llie admuable Tariety ct form and colour^ which adorn the

flofl of Hindostan. The Vindhya chain^ which waa long the

hoandarj of the East Ariamc nations, is still within the

toRid sone, while the whole of Persia is ntnated beyond the

Iropacs^ and its poetic literature e?en belongs in part to the

northern eoil of Balkh and Pergana. The four paradises

celebrated by.the Persian poets (^), were the pleasant vaUey

of Soghd near Samareand, Maschanmd near Hamadan^

Tdia'afai Bowan near Kal^eh Sofid in Para, and Ohnte the

fHoKOk of Damaseus. Both Iran and.Tnran are wanting a

tke sflyan scenery and the hermit life of the fcM^est whiidi

IgflueDced so powerfolly the imaginations of the Indian

poets. Gardens r^reshed by springing fonntains, and lilMi

vitfa rose bashes and fruit trees, eoald ill replace the wild

•ad grand scenery <tf Hindostan. No wonder, ttierefori,

iiiai; At deseripii¥e poetry of Perm has less life and fresh*

aese, and is even (tfben ta»e, and full of artificial ornament*

Sfaioe, in the jii%nient of the Persians, the highest meed of

praise is given to that which we tctm sprigbtliness and wti^

o» admiratioii must be limited to the productiveness of

Ikcir poets, ead to ihe infinite variety ol foms(^) wfaicii

tte mme mieberiab assume under their hands: we miss

' ia dfaem depth mid eanieetness of feeling.

& Ae nalaoiial ^io of Perma, Pirditei's GhahnamA^
ih6 omrse of the namtive k but i^^rely i&tenupted by
deseiipAiomi of landscape^ Vie praises of the coast land of
iiaza»denm> pat onto tbe month of a wandering bard, and
^ssflrihing Ae mildness of its chmste, and the vigour of Hm
iwijctetteii^ appear to me to have much grace and chanii,
high A^gwe of losal trutlu In jlhe stofy, tibe kiiig

42 -DT'/SBIFnGSS OF KATtTRAt SCENBET

(Kei Kawue^) is induced by the description to undertake mm
expeditiori to the Caspian, and to attempt a new conquest(*^^
Enweri, Dschelaleddin Eumi (who is considered the greatest
mystic poet of the East)^ Adhad, and the half .Indian 'Ewa^
have written poems oa spring, parts of which breatiiie poetic
life and freshness, although in other parts our .eajoymen^ id
often nnpleasingly disturbed by petty efforts in plays on words
and artificial comparisons (^^). Joseph voiu HamEier^ in.
his great Work on the history of Persian poetry, remarks of
Sadi, in the Bostan and Gulistan (Fruit and Eose Gardens),
aAd of Hafiz, whose joyous philosophy of life has been comf
pared with that of Horace, that we find in the first an
ethical teacher, and in the love songs of the second, lyarioftl
flights of no mean beauty ; but that in both the descriptioas .
of nature are too often marred and disfigured by tur^idii^
arid' false ornament (67). The favourite subject of P^sian
poetry, the loves of the nightingale and the rose, is weari^
some, from its perpetual recurrence; and the genuine lovci
of Mature is stifled in the East under the conv^tional
prettinesses'of the language of flowers.

WTien we proceed northwards from the Iraunian highlands
thtdngh Turan (in the Zend Tuirja) {^), into the chain of
the Ural which forms the boundary between Europe and
Asia, we find ourselves in the early seat of the Finnish races ;
forthe Ui%d is as deserving of the title of the ancient land
of the Pins as the Altai is of that of the Turks. AmoBg
the'Firis who have settled far to the west in Europeai?. low*
lands,' EKas Lohurot has collected, from the.Ups of ths
Kafclians and ' the country people of Olonetz, a great
number of Finnish songs, in which Jacob Grimm (**)
findi, in regard to nature, a tone of emotion, and pjE xeveri^f

v»

,'.->;

I

mrt niSk except ia. Tufjian poetiy. Mm old* epis

rf nearly tlire& tfaoruuid lines, which is ooeapied with

iMDRB hdtwwas titt Kns afnd the Lapptj and the for*

aanft ftteof a godliifca hero* naaned Yaino, cmxtniiiB %

^mmffd^gacnpfdoKL of the nual Ufe o£ the Eine; espemelfy

witaie-tbe wik of tiie ixoiiworker, Bmanne, eends ber flodoi

iata»tlhd foeesi^ widi. praj^eis for their aafegoevcL few sa^ee

more remarkaible gsadatioiie in the oharaeter oi tileop

and the'direota>iL of their ftdinge, ae detemmied hf

WBCtiakie, hf idli' and warlike habits, or by fmmvmag

eSMta for poffitkal freedom, than tiie nuee of Kiia^ with ita

aMndsions speatdng kindred langnages^ I aliuchi to the

BMrpeacctfnl roral population among lAom the. qaic jnsl

■oitietted' was discov^ed^ — to^ the Hn&s> (tong oonfonttdedl

iriUi the Moiigi:db,) who overran the Bomaa woxld^-^ani

to« gtfsak and noble peo{de, the Magyars^

^ ha«e seen that the vividnesB of the feeltegwiti^ whidr

mtctte is tegarddi, and i^ form m wkieh thaifodntg mwsi-

&aCM itself, ore influenced by differences rf raoe^ by the par«

tknlar oharaeter of the country, by i^e constitution of the

fitnte^ aad by the tone of rdigioas foelii^ ; and we haiw

teaided this influence in the nitons of Europe, andf in these

of kbdred dbieent in Asia (the Indians and Tlraani^

at Ariamc or Indo-Germaoie origin^ Piismg finns

ttence to the Semitie er Arameasrt race, we ^easflt

ift -iht btdest and most venerable memofiab in wbieh He

toer toad teaden^ of their poetry and isnig;inaii0B ar^ ttb»

l^sBjtA, miqueatioBable evidencea ef a prsfomMi senaiibiMy

tenattve.

I^is fedh^ manifests itself with irrondemr end aewiliog

hfastoral nanratives, in hymns msi Aoai songs, in Hid

, i^endour of lyric poctiy in the Fsabns^ and m the seboslv
VOL, ir. E

Si DBSCB^PTIOKS OF NATUAAL SCENBRT '

laagnificeut residence of a powearfal king. In neither poal
is the del^cription of nature a primary or independent
-object/'

'^Opposed to these simple popular ^ics^ are the more
Varied and artificial narrations of the chivalrous poets of the
thirteenth century; among whom^ Hartmann von Aue^
Wolfram von Eschenbach, and Gottfried von Strasburg (^),
in the early part of the century^ are so much distinguished
a.bove the rest^ that they may be called great and classieaL
It would be easy to bring together from their extensive
•writings sufScient proof of their deep feeling for nature^ as^
it breaks forth in similitudes; but distinct and independfint
descriptions of natural scenes are nev^ found in their pages^
they never arrest the progress of the action to contemplate
the tranquil life of nature. How different is this from the
writers of modern poetic coiaposifcions ! Bernardin de St,-
Herre uses the occurrences of his narratives only as frames isx
liis pictures. The lyric poets of the 13th century, e$pecially
wl^en singing of love, (which is not, however, their constant
theme), speak, indeed, often of 'gentle May,' of the 'song
of the nightingale,' ^d 'the dew glistening pn the bells of.
jheathe^,' but always in connection with sentiments springing
fro5i other sources, which these outward images serve to
reflect. Thus, when feelings of sadness are to be indicated,
jnention is made of fading leaves, birds whose songs ^P
mute, and the fruits of the field buried in snow. The same
.thoughts recur incessantly, not indeed without considerable
variety as weU as beauty in the manner iij which they ace
expressed. Walther von der Yogelweide^ and Wolfram von
Eschenbach, the former leharacterised by tenderness and the
latter by deep thought, have 1^ us some lyric piec^

vx THS emauLW of the mibdlis ages. 85

mrforfcttnatdy only few in number, which are deserving of
honourable mention/'

^' If it be asked whether contact with Southern Italy, and,
)by means of the crasades, with Asia Minor, Syria, and
Palestine, did not enrich poetic art in Germany with new
imagery drawn from the aspect of nature in more sunny
^^es, the question must, on the whole, be answered in the
jiegative. We do not find that acquaintance with the East
ohai^ed the direction of the minstrel poetry of the period $
the crusaders had little famiUar communication with the
Ssffacens, and there was much of repulsion even between the
yrarriors of differ^it nations associated for a common cause,
f riedridi von Hausen, who perished in Barbarossa's army;
iras one of the earhest German lyrical poets. His songs
often relate to the crusades, but only to express religious
feelings, or the pains of absence from a beloved object.
Jfeither he nor any of the writers who had taken part in the ex^
peditions to Palestine, as Beiumar the Elder, Eubin, Neidliart,
and Utarich of Lichteustein, ever take occasion to speak of tlie
^xairj in which they were sojourning. Reinmar came to
Syria as a pilgrim, it would appear, in the train of Duke
liOopold yi. of Austria : he complains that the thoughts of
home le^ve him no peace, and draw him away from God»
Xhe date-tree is occasionally mentioned, in speaking of the
palms which pious pilgrims should bear on their shoulders.
Neither do I remember any indication of the loveliness of
Italian nature having stimulated the imagination of those
minstrela who crossed the Alps. Walther von der VogeU
wade, though he had wandered hr, had in Italy seen only
]|^ Fo; but . Treidank (") was in Borne, and he merely

M BBSCKiraONS OF ITATUBAL 8GENXBT

remarkfl tliat 'grass now grows in the palaees of those wto
once ruled there/ **

The German Thier-epos, which must not be confounded
with the oriental ''&ble/^ originated in habitual assodation
and familiarity with the animal world ; to paint which was
Boi^ however, its purpose. This peculiar class of poem,
which Jacob Grimm has treated in so masterly a manner, is
the introduction to his edition of Reinhart Fachs, shewa ft
cordial delight in nature. The animals, not attached to tlw
ground, excited by passion, and gifted by the poet with
speech, contrast with ihe still life of the silent plants, oad
fonn a constantly active elmnent enlivening the landsc^MW
f ' The early poetry loves to look on the life of nature with hu*
man eyes, and lends to animals, and even to plants, humai
thoughts and feelings j giving a fanciful and childliko
interpretation to all tiiat has been observed of their forms
and habits. Plants and flowers, gath^ed and used by goda
and heroes^ are afiierwarda named from them. In readiiqf
the old German epi% in which brutes are the actors, we
breathe an air redolent as it were with the sylvan odonra- df
aome ancient forest*^ (s^).

Formerly we might have been tempted to mmber among
the memorials of Germanic poetry having reference to
external nature, the supposed remains of the Cdto-Iri^
poems, which, for half a century, passed as shapes of mist
from nation to nation, under the name of Ossian ; but tiba
apell has been brok^i since the complete discovery of the
literary fraud of the talented Mac^berson, by his pufalicatiaft
nf the supposed Gaelic original text, now known to bam
been a vetrandatioii frcm the JElngUsh work. Tboa

, r-

BT THE UnilAKS. 8Y

iBBeed/ ftndent Irish FingaUan songB belongmg to the tintor
of Cbristiamty, and perhaps not eren reaching as fst badt
as tiie dghth century; bat these popular songs contain
Ht^e of iht sentiinental description of natun which gives m
^aafUcnlaar charm to Macpherson's poems (*').

We have already remarked^ that if sentimental and
itttnantic turns of ftonght and feeling in reference to nature
belong in a high degree to the Indo«G«rmanic races of
Iforthem Enrope, it should not be regarded only as a con-
ieqaence of dimate ; that is^ as arising from a longing desire
itdtenced by protracted privation. I have noticed^ that the
Mteratures of India iind of Persia^ which have unfolded
triisr the glowing brightness oi southern skies^ offer
descriptions Aill of charm, not Only of organic, but also of
faorganic nature; of the transition from parching drought
to tropical rain ; of the appearance of the first cloud on the
deep a2tire of the pure sky, and the first rustling sound of
Aie long desired et^sian winds in the feathered fiDliage of the
idrnmits of tiie palms.

' It' is now time to enter somewhat more deeply into the
subject of the Indian descriptions of nature. "Let uS
imegine/' says Lassen, in his excellent work on Indian
ftilftjuity (■*), •'a pofrtionof the Aiianic race migrating from
fteir primifive seats, in the north-west, to India: they
*ould there find' themselves surrounded by scenery altOh.
gether new, and by vegetation of a striking and luxuriant
tfcarscter. The nrildness of the climate, the fertility of the
bfi, the profiisibn of rich gifts which it lavishes almost
tpontancously, wonM aD tend to impart to the new life of
ihe ftnmi^nmts 'a bright aid dieetful colouring. The ori^-
tafly ine organisation of this race, and their high endow-

26 DESCEIPTIONS OP NATURAL SCENERY

greatness and goodness of the Creator from the order of the
universe and the beauty of nature ; and this desire to glorify
the Deity through his works, favoured a disposition for
natural descriptions. We find the earliest and most detailed
instances of this kind in the writings of Minucius Telix, a
rhetorician and advocate hving in Eome in the beginning
of the third century, and a contemporary of Tertullian and
Philostratus. We follow him with pleasure in the evening ,
twilight to the sea shore near Ostia, which, indeed, he
describes as more picturesque, and more favourable to
health, than we now find it. The rehgious discourse
entitled '^ Octavius^^ is a spirited defence of the new faith
against the attacks of a heathen friend (**).

This is the place for introducing from the Greek fathers of
the church extracts descriptive of natural scenes, which are
probably less known to my readers than are the evidences of
the ancient Italian love for a rural life contained in Roman
literature. I will begin with a letter of the great Basil,
which has long been an especial favourite with me. Basil,
who was a native of Cesarea in Cappadocia, left the pleasures
of Athens when httle more than thirty years of age, and,
having already visited the Christian hermitages of Coelo-
Syria and Upper Egypt, withdrew, like the Essenes and
Therapeuti before Cliristianity, into a wilderness adjacent to
the Armenian river Iris. His second brother, Naucratius (**),
had been drowned there while engaged in fishing, after
leading for five years the life of a rigid anchorite. Basil
writes to his friend Gregory of Nazianzum, "Ibehevel
have at last found the end of my wanderings : my hopes of
uniting myself with thee — ^my pleasing dreams, I should
rather say, for the hopes of men have been justly called

BT THB EABLT OHBISHAKa^ • S7

4

waking dreams^ — ^have lemained unfalfiUecL God has
oaused me to find a place such as has often hovered before
the fancy of us both ; and that which imagination shewed
US afar off^ I now see present before me. A high mountain,
clothed with thick forest^ is watered towards the north by
fresh and ever flowing streams ; and at the foot of the^
mountain extends a wide plain, which these streams render
fruitftd. The surrounding forest, in which grow many kinds
of trees, shuts me in as in a strong fortress. This wilder-
ness is bounded by two deep ravines ; on one side the riverj.
precipitating itself foaming from the mountain, forms a&
obstacle* difficult to overcome ; and the other side is enclosed
by a broad range of hills. My hut is so placed on the
summit of the mountain, that I overlook the extensive plain;
and the whole course of the Iris, which is both mora
beautifal, and more abundant in its waters, than the
Strymon near AmphipoUs. The river of my wilderness^
which is more rapid than any which I have ever seen, breakit
against the jutting precipice, and throws itself foaming intp
the deep pool below — ^to the mountam l^aveller an object ai\,
which he gazes with delight and admiration, and valuable
to the native for the many fish which it affords. Shall X
describe to thee the fertilising vapours rismg from the
moist earth, and the cool breezes from the broken watier?
ihaU I speak of the lovely song of the birds, and of the
profusion of flowers? What charms me most of all is thf
imdisturbed tranquillity of the district : it is only vi«te4
occasionally by hunters; for my wilderness feeds deer and
lierds of wild goats, not your bears and your wolves. How
fhould I exchange any other place for this I AlcmsaoUt
when he had found the EchinadeSj would not wander

VOL. II. ^

frrtliei:^ (*^). In this cdnipk description of the landscspt
laid of the life of the forest, th^e speak feelings more in&f
Biately allied to those of modem times than any thing that
Greek and Boman antiquity haye bequeathed to us. Feoa
the lonely mountain hnt to which Basilios had retired, the
tsje looks down on the humid roof of foliage of the forest be*
neath ; the resting-plaoe for which he and his fdlend Gregoqr
«f Nazianznm (*^) have so long panted is at last foiuid.
The sportive allusion at the dose to the poetic mytb» of
Alcmseon sounds like a distant lingering echo^ rqieating m
&e Christian world accents bebnging to that whidi had
preceded it.

Basii^s Homilies on the Hexaemeron also beer witness to
his love of nature. He describes the mildness of the eoth*
i^tantly serene nights of Asia Minor^ where^ aoeording to Ms
expression^ the stars^ ^ those eternal floweia of heaTea/'
raise Ihe spirit of man from the visiMe to the Invisible ('^
"Wlien^ in speaking of the creation of the woiid, he desiies
to praise the beauty of iihe sea, he describes ike aqped
of the boundless plain of waters in its different and vaj*
faig conditions — ^how, when gently agitated by miUSy*
bresthing airs^ it gives back &e varied hxkeH of heaven^ now
fai white, now in Une^ and now in roseate light; aodcaiesaee
{he aliore in peaeeM play f'

W€ find in Gregory of Nyssa^ the brother of Basil, Htm
Mnci dehght in nature, ilie same sentimeiital and paxt^
inedinchoiy vmn. ^ Wh^/^ he eidbims, ^ I beheld eadi
lataggy hill, each valley, and eadi pbtn clothed with fradi^
iprmging grass; the varied foliage wiHi wfaidi the tveesitte
dbnied; at n^ feet the lilied to whi<^ nitiae has gi«Mi •
^inAle doweri «^ s^mil fragrance, ttad of beaalfy of «oloar{

Md in Om ^iiittfioe tb^ hik towards which tho wimdering
cfeud ii a«Ii]ig»-^my mmd iy posaewed with & wdnew which
ii wA devoid of «BJoymMi1; Whco, lA Autunm, the fruiti
Hmfpewt, the Isavai &Uj «ad the hreacbeii of the trees^
rtriiqped oC ibeir orn«maiiti|» himg lifelewu ui viewing thii
p^rpetiud mi legalfirfy reoamng eltemation the mind
IweoiiieB flteorbed in the oontempUtioii^ and rapt a» it
were in imieoa with the many^voiced choras of the won-
ig€fm f<mes of jiatara. Whpao gazes tbxQugh these with
tiio inw«rd eye of thejoul &ala the litUepeaa of loaa vcl the
gireatoesa of the nniveiee'" (^9),

While the early Christian Greeks were thus hi» by
glorifjring God in a loving contemplation of natnrea to poetio
deeer^tions of her various boanty, they were at the same
tisw fill! of contempt lor all worjcs of human art* We find jn
Cbrys ostom many 9uch pasaages as these : ''when thou lookest
(sm the glittcm« buildings, if Ihe ranges of cohimns would
seduce thy heart, turn quickly to contemplate the vault of
heaven and the open fields, with the flocks grazing by the
water's aide. Who but d^spiaes all that axt can shew whilst
jhe gazes at early mornj an^ in the ailencc of the hf»^
€m a» rising sun pouring his golden light upon ihe
«artb; or when seated by th^ fide of a fountain in the cool
grass, or in the dark shade of thiek foliog^ his eye feedf
tiio whfle on the wide^tended prpq^t fyit vanishing tn the
diatanise'' p)^ Attioch waa at this period ^unronnd^ by
hnmitMg/fn, in one of which Phiyiostom dwek - it jiMght
•bwe seemed tfiat doonence had f^fMiw<i njmin Ikog fh^mtmL.

ke^ifm, on r^tnrpmg to the bosom of nature in the . tkm
ftrert-ooY^erftd ipountam. districfai of &jm and Mm Minor,
vftit whiH^ during the sQbsequei4 ffiP^, so hosjtile to all

j&6 DESCRIPTIONS OP NATURAL SCENERY

intellectual cultivation^ Christianity spread among the Grep*
manic and Celtic races, who had previously been devoted to
the worship of nature, and who honoured under rude symbol*
its preserving and destroying powers, the close and aflfec^
tionate intercourse with the external world of phsenomena
which we have remarked among the early Christians of
Greece and Italy, as weU a^ all endeavours to trace the
action of natural forces, fell gradually under suspicion, ad
fending towards sorcery. They were therefore regarded as
hot less dangerous than the art of the sculptor had appealed
to Tcrtullian, Clemens of Alexandria, and almost all the
inost ancient fathers of the church. In the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, the Councils of Tours (1163) and of
Paris (1209) forbade to monks the sinful reading of writing^
to physical science (s^). These intellectual fetters were
first broken by the courage of Albertus Magnus and Eogej
!Bacon *, when nature was pronounced pure^ and reinstated ill
her ancient rights.

Hitherto we have sought to depict differences which hav6
f hewn themselves in different periods of time ; and in two
literatures so nearlv allied as were those of the Greeks and
the Romans. But not only are great differences in modeii
of feeling produced by time, — ^by the changes which it
brings with it, in forms of govemment> in manners, and
in religious views,— but diversities still more striking are
^produced by differences of race and of mental dispositioiu
Bow different in animation and in poetic colouring are the
•manifestations of the love of nature and the descriptions of
natural scenery among the Greeks, the Germans of the
liorth, the Semitic races, the Persians, and the Indians I

BT THE GEIIMAN9 OP THE MIDDLE AGES. 31

An ppinion has been repeatedly expressed, that the delic^ht
in nature felt by northern nations, and the longiug desire
for the pleasant fields of Italy and Greece, and for the won*^
derfol luxuriance of tropical vegetation^ are principally to be
ascribed to the long winter's privation of all such enjoy-
ments. We do not mean to deny that the longing for tliQ
climate of palms seems to diminish as we approach the
South of France and the Iberian Peninsula ; but the now
generally employed, and ethnologically correct name of Indo-
Germanic races, might alone be suf&cient to remind us thai
we must be cautious lest we generalise too much respecting
the influence thus ascribed to northern winters.. The rich»
ness of the poetic literature of the Indians teaches us, that
-within and near the tropics south of the great chain of th^
Himalaya, the sight of ever verdant and ever flowering
forests has at ail times acted as a powerful stimulus tq th0
poetic and imaginative faculties of the East- Arianic natiops^
cudd that these nations have been more strongly incliiiied to
picturesque degcriptipns of nature than the true Germ^-nio
raees, who^ in the far inhospitable north, had extended evei
jmto Iceland. A depriv9,tion, or, at least, a certain inx^xp
ruptipn of the enjoyment of nature, is not, however, unjr
Jmown even to the happier climates of Southern Asia . the
masons are there abruptly divided from each other by alteiy
^ate periods of fertilising rain and of dusty desolatipg
aridity. Jn the Persian plateau of West Aria, the desert
often extends ii\ deep bays far intp the interior of the mo^
,fmiliiig .and fruitful lands. In Middle and in Western
' A^ia, a margin of forest often forms as it were the shore df
> widely extended inland sea of steppe ; ,and thus the inhabi-
>» tents of these hot countries, have presented to them the

i2 DESCEipnoys op natural scEinfiHt

strongest contrasts of desert barrenness and luxuriant vege-
tation^ in the same horizontal plane^ as well ai) in the veriioat
elevation of the snow-capped mountain chaim of India and
of Afghanistan. Wherever a lively tendency to the contem<»
pktion of nature is interwoven with the whole intellectoal
cultivation, and with the reb'gious feeUngs of a nation, great
and striking contrasts of season, of vegetation, or of elevft*
tion, are unfailing stimulants to the poetic imagination.

Delight in nature, inseparable from the tendency to objeo*
live contemplation which belongs to the Germanic nations,
shews itseK in a high degree in the learliest pbetiy of tht
middle ages. Of this the chivalric poems of the Minne*
fingers during the Hohenstauffen period afford us numerous
examples. Many and varied as are its points of contact
With the romanesque poetry oif the Proven9als^ yet its trufe
Germanic principle can never be mistaken. A deep felt 9xA
sU pervading love of nature may be discerned in all Gef**
manic manners, habits, and modes of life; and even in the
love of freedom characteristic of the race(®*). The wander
ing Minnesingers, or minstrels, though living much^ift
tburtly circles (from which, indeed, they often sprang), still
maintained frequent and intimate intercourse with nature,
and preserved, in all its freshness, an idyllic, and often tt&
elegiac, turn of thought. I avail myself on these subjects
of the researches of those most profoundly v^sed in the
liistory and literature of our (German middle ages, my noble*
minded friends Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. **The poets of
our country <£ that period,'^ says the last named writcf,
** never gave separate descriptions of ); atural scen^^ design^
solely to represent in brilliant colours, tlie impresston «f
the limdlcape oti the mind. Assuredly the tye and tte

BT THE GEBXA1C8 OF THB XXIHXLB AIBXS. St

leding for nature were not wmnting in these old Gcnnm
makers ; but the only expressions thereof whidi they have
left us are such, as flowed forth in lyrical strains, in conneQ»
tion with the occorrenees or the feeling belonging to the
narrative. To begin with the b6st and oldest monuments of
the popular epOB, we do not find any descripticm of scenery
either m the Niebelungen or in 6udmn("), even where the
occasion might lead us to look for it. In the otherwise
arcumstantial description of t\m chase during which Sieg«
fried is murdered, the only natural features mentioned are
tiie blooming heather and ihe cool fountain under the
linden tree. In Gudrun, which shews somediing of a
Jugher polish^ a finer eye for nature seems also discernible*
When the king's daughter, with her companions, reduced
to slavery, and compelled to perform menial of&oes, cany
-the garments of their cruel lord to the sea-shcHce, the time is
incdcaled as being the season ' when winttt is just dissolv-
ing, and tlie birds begin to be heard, vying with eadi other
in their songs ; snow and rain still fall^ and the hair of the
captive maidens is blown by the rude winds of March.
"When Qudrun, hoping for the approach of her deUverer^
leaves her couch, the morning star rises over the sea., which
begins to glisten in the early dawn, and she distinguishes
the dark helmets and the shields of her friends.^ The words
are few, but they convey to the fancy a visible picture, suited
to heighten the feeling of expectation and suspense previous
to the ocouxrence of an important event in the narratives
Jbk like manner, when Homer paints the island of tiie
. CJjrckq^ and the gardens of Alcinons» his purpose is in
ifacii^g before our eyes the luxuriant fertility and abundance
wild dvdling-plaoe of ihe giant monsters, and the

SJf DJBSGBIPnOHS OF NATURAL SCENBET '

loagnificent residence of a powearf al king. Li neither poal
is the description of nature ft pnmaiy or independent
-object/'

'^Opposed to these simple popular epics> are the more
varied and artificial narrations of the chivalrous poets of the
thirteenth century; among whom^ Hartmann von Aue^
Wolfram von Eschenbach, and Gottfried von Strasburg (5*),
in the early part of the century^ are so much distinguished
ebove the rest^ that they may be called great and classicaL
It would be easy to bring together from their extensive
iimtings sufficient proof of their deep feeling for nature^ as -
at breaks forth in similitudes; but distinct and independent
descriptions of natural scenes are never found in their pages^
they never arrest the progress of the action to contemplate
the tranquil life of nature. How different is this from the
writers of modern poetic cotipositions ! Bernaxdin de St.-
Kerre uses the occurrences of his narratives only as frames fwr
liis pictures. The lyric poets of the 13th century^ especially .
wl^en singing of love, (which is not, however, their constant
theme), speak, indeed, often of ' gentle May,^ of the ^ song
of the nightingale/ ^nd ' the dew glistening pn the bells of
heathe?:,' but plways in connection with sentiments springing
from other sources, which these outward images serve to
reflect. Thus, when feeUngs of sadness are to be indicated,
mention is made of fading leaves, birds whose songs ?rp
mute, and the fruits of the field buried in snow. The sam^
thoughts recur incessantly, not indeed without considerable
yariety as well as beauty in the manner iij which they are
expressed. Wslther von der Yogelweide, and Wolfram vou n
Eschenbach, the former characterised by tenderness an4 the .
latter by deep thought, have left us some lyrio pieces

VI TBJb eSRMAVS OF THB MIDDLE AGES. SS

laftfbrfcwiatdy only few ia number, which are deserving of
honourable mention/'

*' If it be asked whether contact with Southern Italy, and,
)by means of the crusades, with Asia Minor, Syria, and
Palestine, did not enrich poetic art in Germany with new
imagery drawn from the aspect of nature in more sunny
climes, the question must, on the whole, be answered in the
jiegative. We do not find that acquaintance with the East
phax^ed the direction of the minstrel poetry of the period :
the crusaders had little familiar communication with the
Sarac^is, and there was much of repulsion even between the
irarriors of diiferent nations associated for a common cause*
friediich von Hansen, who penshed in Barbarossa's army,
was one of the earliest German lyrical poets. His songs
often relate to the crusades, but only to express religious
feelings, or the pains of absence from a beloved object.
INTeither he nor any of the writers who had taken part in the ex^
peditions to Palestine, as Beinmar the Elder, Bubin, Neidliart,
and Ulrich of Lichtenstein, ever take occasion to speak of the
eQU]iii:jry in which they were sojourning. Beinmar came to
Syria as a pilgrim, it would appear, in the train of Duke
Leopold YL of Austria : he complaius that the thoughts of
home leave him no pea^e, and draw him away from God.
yhe date-tree is occasionally mentioned, in speaking of the
palms which pious pilgrims should bear on their shoulders.
Neither do I remember any indication of the loveliness of
Italian nature having stimulated the imagination of those
minstrels who crossed the Alps. "Walther von der VogeU
wdde, though he had wandered far, had in Italy seen only
tha Po; but . Preidank (^) was in Bome, and he merely

M IXBSCBIFnOKS OF KATUIUL SOSinEET

temarks tliaf; 'grass now grows in the palaoes of those wto
once ruled there/ **

The German Thier-epos^ which must not be confounded
with the oriental '^fiahle/' originated in habitual assoctatuui
and familiarity with the animal world ; to paint which was
Bot^ however^ its purpose. This peculiar class of poenii
which Jacob Grimm has treated in so masterly a manner^ ia
the introduction to his edition of Beinhart Fnchs^ shews s
cordial delight in nature* The animals^ not attadied to tli9
ground^ excited by passion^ and gifted by the poet with
qnechj contrast with the still life of the silent plants, and
form a constantly active element enlivening the landscapes
f ' The early poetry loves to look on the life of nature with hu«
man eyes, and lends to animals, and even to ^nts, humaa
thoughts and feelings j giving a fanciful and childHke
interpretation to all that has been observed of their forms
and habits. Plants and flowers, gathered and used by gods
imd heroes^ are afterwards named from them. In leadii^
the old German episi, in which brutes are the actors, we
bf eathe an air redolent as it were with the sylvan odours- of
some ancient forest'* (*^).

Formerly we might have been tempted to number amoi^
the memorials of Germanic poetry having leferenoe ta
external i^ature, the supposed remains of the Cdto-Iriaii
poems, which, for half a century, passed as shapes of mist
bom nation to nation, under the name of Ossian ; but the
apell has been brok^i since the complete disoovery of tiu
litersiy fraud of the talented Mac^herson, by his pufalicatiaa
of Hit supposed Gaelic origiBal text, now known to bsem
been a setrandation ircm the iElngUsh work. Tbeitt

indeed^ ftncient Irish Pingalian songB belonging to the timar
ef Christiuiity^ and perhaps not eren reaching as far bade
«B the eighth century; but these popular iongs contain
HffSLe of the sentimental description of nature which gives n
paa^&ais^ charm to Macpherson's poems (^').

We have alread;^ remarked^ that if sentimental and
itmiantic tarns of thought and feeling in reference to nature
belong in a high degree to the Indo-Germanic races of
Worthem Eufope, it should not be regarded only as a con-
sequence of climate ; that is^ as arising from a longing desire
Chanced by prbtracted privation. I have noticed, that the
Mtisratures of India imd of Persia^ which have unfolded
wsfkst the glowing brightness d£ southern sldes^ offer
descriptions Aill of charm^ not 6nly of oi^nic^ but also of
foorganic nature ; of the transition from parching drought
to tropical rain ; of the appearance of the first cloud on the
deep aiure of the pure sky, and the first rustling souiid of
flte long desired etesian winds in the feathered foliage of the
imnmtts of tiie pahns.

• It is now tame to enter somewhat more deeply into the
mibject of the Indian descriptions of nature. "Let uil
faiagme/' says Lassen, in his excellent work em Indian
totitiuity C®), *^a pofrtion of the Arianic race migrating from
Adt primifive seats, in the norfli-west, to India: they
ifotjli there find' themsdves surrounded by scenery altoi*
gether new, and by vegetation of a striking and luxuriant
AtofiCter. The nfldness of the climate, the fisriflity of tite
eofl, the profiision of ribh gifts which it lavishes almost
Ipontaneously, wouM aB tend to impart to the new life rf
^e fmmi^nts a bright aid dieetful colouring. The origi-
taJly fine organisation of this race, and their h^h endow-

58 DESCEIPTXONS OP NATURAL SCENERY

ments of intellect and disposition^ the genn oi all that iHui
Ikationsi of India havQ achieved of great or noble^ earljr
gendered the spectacle of the external world productive of #
profound meditation on the forces of nature^ which is the
groundwork oi^ that contemplative tendency which we find
intimately interwoven with the earliest Indian poetry. This
prevailing impression on the mental disposition of the
p^plcj, has embodied itself most distinctly in their fonda*
mental religious tenets, in the recognition of the divine in
nature. The careless ease of outward life likewise favoured
t^ indidgence of the contemplative tendency. Who could
have less to disturb their meditations on earthly life, tb^
condition of man after death, and on the divine essence, .
than the Indian anchorites, the Brahmins dwelling in thf9
forest (^^), whose ancient schools constituted one of the
most peculiar phsenomena of Indian life, and materially
influenced the mental development of the whole race?^'
, In referring now, as I did in my public lectures under thi
guidance of my brother aad of ot}iera conve^ant widi
Sanscrit literature, to particular instances of the vivid sense
pf natural beauty which frequently breaks forth in thci
descriptive portions of Indian poetry, I begm with tim
Yedas, or sacred writings, which are the earliest monuments
of the civihsatpn of the East Ariamc nations, and are princiif
peUy occupied with the adoring veneration of nature. Thi^
]iymns of the Bag-Yeda contaiA beantifal descriptions of thc|
h\^sk of ^y dawn, and the appearance of the /' golden^
}ianded^^ sun^ The great heroic poem^ ^ Itamayana and
J!if c^abhar^t^ i^re later than the Yedas, and ^lier than th^
JPnrana^ J and w them the p^^ais^ o{ nature fure conuec^fid
wil^ A narrative, agreeably to the essential chariK^ter of epq

..J

BY THE INDIANS. 89

pdetiy. In the Yedas^ it is seldom possible to assign the
-^articiilar locality whence the sacred sages derive their inspi-
ration ; in the heroic poems^ on the contrary^ the descriptiaiNi
• sore mostlj individiud^ and attached to particular localities^
' "and are animated by that fresher life which is found where
4he writer has drawn from impressions of which he was him-
self the recipient. Bama's journey from Ayodhya to thD
capital of Dschanaka^ his sojourn in the primeyal forest^ and
the pictore of th^ hermit life of the Panduides^ are all richly
ecdonred.

' The name of the great poet Kalidasa^ who flourished at
the highly polished court of Vikramaditya, contempora-
:iieously with Virgil and Horace^ has obtained an early and
extensive celebrity among the nations of the west: near»
bur own thnes^ the English and German translations <^
6acontala have farther contributed^ in a high degree^ to the
jfkdmiration so largely felt for an author^ whose tenderness ot
leeling^ and rich creative imagination^ claim for hhn a dis»
^gtdehed place among the poets of all countries (^)< The
fcharm of his descriptions of nature is seen also in the lovely
dtama of *' Vikrama and XJrvasi,'' in which ttie king wanders
through the thickets of the forest in search of the nymph
Urvasij in the poem of ''The Seasons;'' and in ''The
Jffeghaduta/' or " Cloud Messenger/' The last named poetn
l^aints^ with admirable truth to nature, the joyful welcome
which^ after a long continuance of tropical drought, hai)d
the first appearance of the rising cloud, which shews that
the looked-for season of rains is at hand. The expres*
fAxmg ''truth to 'nature/' which I have just employed, can
fdone justify lae in venturing to recal, in connection wifli
1^ Indian poem« a sketchfof the commencement of the

40 BBSCBIFaK»» Of N4ff9aAl< SCENSET

niny season (^^ traced hj mjselt in Soutli Am^csi alt fb
time when I was wholly unacquainted with Kalidwai^p
Megfaaduta, e^en in' Chfo/s translation, Hie obseuxe
Bieteoirologidal processes which take place in the atmosphere
jn the foKjnation of vapour^ in the shape of the cbudfi, saA
in the Imninous electric phsenomena^ ace the same in the
IcopicaL legums of both continents; and idealising aiN^
whose province it is to form the actual into the ideal im^
wffl surely lose none of its magic power by the disc^vaif
that the analysing spirit of observation of a later age 009^
frvMi the truth to nature of the older^ purely graphical and
poetical representation*

We pass from the East Ariaas^ or the i^himnio In^MM^
smd ihdr st»oag).y marked sense of picturesque beauty in
]iature(^*)^ to the West ArianSj or Persians^ who had
mgmited into the northern country d the Zend, wad wem
mriginaUy disposed to combine with the dnalistie belief in
Orm»zd Hid Ahrinnne. ft .piritB«li«ed vanewtioa otmim».
What we term Persian hterature does not i^aeh farther bfidk
than the period of the Sassanides; the older poetic memmsje
lumperished; and it was not nsfcil the country badbeeaeub*
jugatedbythe Arabs^ aiid theeba»cteiistics of its earlier teb^
bitents in great measure obliterated^ ihat it regained « national
literature^ under the Samamdes^ Gasnevides, and SeUndmlcL
The flotirishing period of its poetry^ from Firdusi to Hafitf and
Dsohami^ can hardly be said to have ksted four -or &m eeb-
4uries^ and extends but little beyond the ^och of Vasoo de
€«ina« The liileraitures of Persia and of India an separate
hj time as wdl as by space ; the Pemm bdon^ng to tiie
waddle ages, while the greaCt Jitesatnee of India bcimfs
ffteictltf to antiqvjty. Li tim Iiaohian hq^dands^

A

not present the loxuriance of arboresoent vegetation^ or
flie ttcbmrable variety kA form and colour^ which adorn the
ml of Hindostan. The Vindhya chain^ which was long the
bonndazj of the East Arianic nations, is still within the
tofxid Bone;, while the whole of Persia is ntnated beyond tha
iropKS, and i^ poetic literature even belongs in part to the
iK»rtiiem soil of Balkh and Fergana. The four paradises
eelebrated fay .the Persian poets (*3), were tiie pleasant vallej
nf Soghd sear Samareand, Masehanrad near Hamadan^
Tdift'abi Sowan near Kal^eh Sofid in Pars, and Ohute dw
{hdn of Damaseus. Both Iran asd^Turan are wanting a
ike qivan scenery and the hermit life of the forest whii^
iiAveiiced so powerfully the imaginations of ilie Indian
posts. Gsrdau refredied by springing fooiiiains, and filkd
With rose bashes and fruit trees, eould ill replace the wild
wd grand seenerj of Hindostan. No wonder^ tiierdoM^
tfiat fte descriptive poetry of P^ria has less life and fredi*
BBSS, and is even (^n taine, and full of artificial ornament*
fiboe, in the judgment of the Persians, the highest -meed of
praise is given to that which w« term sprigbtliness and wf^
oar admiistioii must be limited to the prodnctiveness of
tteir poete, mid to the infinite variety of forms(^) which
Hm mme mafaerkls assiime under their hands: we misi
im ihien depth and earnestness of feelmg.

Jb the national ^c of Persia, Firdtbsfs ShahnamA^
tte txmrsB of tin nanrative is but gaiety intenupted by
tftnerifiioBS of landscape^ ISie praises of the eoast land of
Mtzwidesmi, pat dnto the month of « wwtdering bard^ and
-^isflrihing tiie mildnitss of its clanate, and the vigour of ili
-fqpsiidoa^ appear, to me to hare much giace and chasm,
Mi* h%h jbgpre «f loeal tratiL In thai Jtcnj, the ling

42 -DT'/SBISTLGSS 09 KATtTRAii SC3ENBRT

(Kei Kawuf/) is induced by the description to undertake wk
expedition to the Caspian, and to attempt a new conquest(*')^
Enweri, DscheMeddin Eunu (who is considered the gr^tesfc
mystic poet of the East), Adhad, and the half .Indian 'Etm^
have written poems on spring, parts of which breathe poetic
life and freshness, although in other parts oar .enjoyment il
often nnpleasingly disturbed by petty efforts in idays on wordft
and artificial comparisons (^^). Joseph yon« HaiBHier^ itt.
his great work on the history of Persian poetry, remarks of
Sadi, in the Bostan and Gulistan (Fruit and Bose Grardens)^
aid of Hafiz, whose joyous philosophy of life has been com^
pared with that of Horace, that we find in the first alt
ethical teacher, and in the love songs of the second, lyriod
flights of no mean beauty ; but that in both the descriptioni
of nature are too often marred and disfigured by turgidiiy
aiid^ false ornament (67). The favourite subject of Persian
poetry, the loves of the nightingale and the rose, is weaii«»
some, from its perpetual recurrence; and the genuine lovci
pi 'tiature is stifled in the East under the conventional
prettinessesof the language of flowers.

Wlien we proceed northwards from the Iraunian higUanda
thfdugh Turan (in the Zend Tuirja) (®®), into the chain of
the Ural which forms the boundary between Europe and
Asia, we find ourselves in' the early seat of the Knnish races J
for' the Vtal is "as deserving of the title of the ancient land
of the Pins as the Altai is of that of the Turks, Among
the*Kris who have settled far to the west in Europeau low*
lands,' EKas Lohnrot has collected, from the. lips of the
Ka^lians and the country people of Olonetz, a great
number of Finnish songs, in which Jacob Qrimm (••)
findi, -in regard to nature, a tone of emotion and pjt xeveo^ ^

' .^

»w

1006 w& except m Indiaii podaey. Mm old. egis
of nearly tlires thoiuuid Imes, wldch m ooeupied wA
noffi lie^«e» tltt lins aaid the Lappi, aiu^ the £or«
aaisft Mb of 8 godliia hero* noned Yaino^ amtoiiui 4
jlliiiimi^ ill iiiipliim of ih» roial Ufe of the !Fins; espemlfy
irikeie*the wil^ of the konworker, Umarine^ sends her fioeki
iat^Ae fottst^ iv^th. pn^^eis for thrir silegoavd. few meee 1
jMacidir more remarkable gsadatioiu in the ohareeter oi tiiw
jmai» and thetdiitectbiL of thar fedlings, ee detenosned hf
aof^ttude, bjr idld and warlike habits, or bjF peieeveriag
eSbrtd tta pc^ical freedom, ikiatn. tiie nuse of Eiue^ wiUi ite
seiMfari»Diia speaking kindred laiignages^ I aJhide to the
9Mr peaciM tend population among ndiomr l^e. ^c jwl
muMiffitBiynis discovered, — ^to the Hn&s> (long eonftmBdedt
widi the Mongub,) who overma the Boman woiid^-^eiii
teitt gr«lt and mible people, the Magyarsi

We ha«e seen tiiat the Tividness of the feeloig.witili whu^
Bfltnte is r^arded, and l^e form in whieh tibeiftelsng mani-
&M itself, safe influenced by differences of race^ by the par-^
tkalar citaeaetiar of the country, by the constitution ctf the
.'stBite^ sad by tbe tone of rdigious feeHsg ; and we han«
teaeed this influence in the nations of Europe, amd in ibeea
of ks^ftdred dlese^i in Asia (the Indiane and Bmoniis)
of iiciaiiic or Indo-Genn(»ue origin* Kuimg fiNMS
Aence to the Semitie er Aramc^m race, we d^Qoiret
is -iSm didesi and most venerabte memori&ts in wllieh tAo
tone at^ ieadenqr of their poetry and imaginatioB VNf Hi^
flayed, unquestionable evidences of a profound wemhSS^
to imt we;

fim fieeHi^ manifesls itself with ivrandeiir aad nmhtitmti

is pastoial iiarratives> iii hymns mti ^ora! aosgs, ia iU

[ splendour of lyric pootiy in the Paahtis^ and in tfae eehodb

VOL. n. ^

44 DESCEXFTIONS CO* DUlTUXAIi SCENEBT

of the {ffophets. and seors^ whose high inspiistioii^ alsKMife
estranged £roia the past^ is wrapped in fatnrity.

Besides its own inherent greatness and stthlimity, Hebrisir
poetry presents to Jews^ to Christians^ and even to Maho-
metans, local reminiscences . more or less closely entwined
with religious feelings. Through missions, favoured by tin
spirit of conuneieej and the.territcHial acquisitions ot mari-
time nations, names and descriptions bebmging to oriental
localities, preserved to us in the writings of the Old Tesitft*
ment, have penetrated far into the recesses oi the foiesis of.
the new continent, and into the islands of the Pacific.

It , is charact^stic of Hebrew poetry in reference
to nature,, that, as a reflex of monothebm^ it always
embraces the whole world in its unity, compr^nding tho .
life, of the terrestrial globe as well as.the shining regions of
space. It dwells less on details of phenomena, and loves -
to contemplate great masses. Nature is pourtrayed, not as
self-subsistiDg, or glorious in her own beauty, but ever in
relation to a higher, an over^ruling, a spiritual power. The
Hebrew bard ever sees in her the living expression of the
omnipresence of God in the works of the visible, crea^n.
Thus, the lyrical poetry ; of the Hebrews in its descriptions,
of na^u*e is essentially, in its very subject, grand and solemn,
and, when touching on the earthly condition of man, full of
a yeanpng pensiveness. It is deserving of notice, that
notwithstanding its grand character, and even in its highest
lyrical flights elevated by the charm of music, the Hebrew
poetry, unlike that of the Hindoos, scarcely ever appears
unrestrained by law and measure. Devoted to the pure
Goisdteaaplation of the Divinity, figurative in knguage, birt
dear and simple in thought, it ddights in comparisons, whi^.
leour continually i^^d almost rhythmically.

BY VHK HEBItBWS. 46

Am deseriptiolis of natural scenerf, the wriiings of the
.Old Testament shew as in a mirror the nature of the
coTmtrjin wUch the people of Isisel moved and dwelt^ with
its alternations of desert^ fruitfol land^ forest^ and mountain.
Tbey pourtiay the variations of the climate of Palestine^ the
succession of the seasons^ the pastoral manners of the
peo]^, and their innate disinoHnatkm to agriculture. - The
epic^ or historical and narrative^ portions are of the utmost
sHnpHcitjr, almost more unadorned even than Herodotus;
and from the small alteration which has taken place in the
manners^ and in the usages and circumstances of a nomade
1^, modem travellers hare been enabled to testify unani-
mously to their truth to nature. The Hebrew lyrical
poetr/ is mo« adorned, ^ unfolds rich and aBimated^e^
of the life of nature. A single psalm^ the 104th^ may be
said to present a pictczre of the entire Cosmos : — '' The Lord
covereth himself with light as with a garment^ He hs,th
stretched out the heavens like a canopy. He laid' the
foundations of the round earth that it should not be removed
foi; ever. The waters springing in the mountains descend
to the valleys, unto the places which the Lord hath
appointed for them, that they may never pass the bounds
which He has set them, but may give drink to every beast
of the field. Beside them the birds of the air sing among
the branches. The trees of the Lord are fall of sap, the
cedars of Lebanon which He hath planted, wherein the
bixds make their nests, and the fir trees wherein the stork-
builds her . house/^ The great and wide sea is also described^
''whfireinare living things innumerable i theane move tiiie
shiyps, and thc^e is that leviathan, whom Thou hast mv^ tQ^
sg^ therein.^' The &mt9 of the fidd^ the oliqects of Ht^^

46 DEscsiFiins cv mmMi scenery

labour or mmy aie olw int^daced; the eom, Che eheaM
▼ine^ and tbe olive gttdeftr Tke lieavenly bodies eamplele
IMs i»ciciYe of nataf^ ^The Lord appoiated Hie moon
fer sfeBsens^ «ni A« sua hMyweib tbe teim of Us ooarse;
He briBgeth chiknessy end ft w B^t, wfaereixt the ir3d
beiists roam, llie joirag Iiim8> rocop after their prej^ ifttd
tetk their meat fton Gkd. f%er»m oriseth mid they gd
ibem awaj t<^ther^ and lav them dew& in Iheir dens :" and
thcfn ''man goelh todk unto his ironk and to his Uboor
fDEitil the evcming'.^ Weaie asteniflbed to see^ intian Ae
eompBiss of a poem of sooh »nail dimeBsioB, the nmrerar,
the heavens and tbe eavth^ thus dn^m with a fev gmiA
strokes. Tbe moving life of the riemests is here pliM^ in
oppositioii to tile q«aet hboturas life of mm, from, the
ffsing of the snn^ to» the meimg when his isSj woA h
ime. This dOBtAist^ Hm gutmSfy m the eoneeptioa of
the mHtaal mfitieiiee of phsenonnsMiy the glanee rerrartii^
^ the omMpresent invisiUe Power, whidb can leoaew the
^tee of tbe e&(H(h> ot, cnnflie the o^eatnre to retom i^ain to
the dtist^ give to the whde a diaraet^ of sdemmtf and
stil^mit J rather than of wormA and soffcness.

0im3ar viewa of the GosnoLos presmt themselves to ms
iepeatedly in the Psahss C^), (as in flie «5th, v. 7 — 14,
i»eid in the 14^ IS — IT), c^nd with perhaps nxost folniess
IB the ancient^ thoa^ not piemosaic^ bode of Job» The
meteorologieal processes taking place IB the oasopj of
^ «ioi»d9^ the ftmatioA and Ass^hitioii ei vapoot m tha
mai ohaiige» ifo dinction, the play of coloofs, the prodne^
Hm of hail, and theMlEiig fiHuider, are described wxO. t|ie
most giaphie indMduality; naiqr qiKstioAa ore also ^cxk
pdaed^ idddi oar madam physiea) scteifeee anabhs «s JM^

4» prbpoond <mwe tunmOf, «Bd to dotbe ia mm seienljie
hngaage^ but not to soItc satisfaeto^. The book of JUb
Is ^eneraUjr TejgupAai «b 4Sie moi^ perfect ezaniple of Hebrew
^pbdrj; JtiBnoleBs pietuNsqoeiBtiieptfeBeiBlatioactfdn^
fUMBflomeiiatiMfli skSM gi the didaotio amageaiieat of tbe
^ole. Ib ^ tbe vanom Biodam languageB into wbidk
lfa» book tias been tnBnkited, Hs iongery, diMm fro»
fewicia ttatnre^ leaifeB on the mmd « deep iBQNremo^
'^'^^ Lord traiks on fte hcfigbta of tbe sea, on the xidgee
tf the to^remi^ waves heaped 19 bj file storsft'^ (chap, icxxviu

T.IB. * The BMfBing dawn lUmimes the boidar of the earthy
and monlda variously thecanopy of d0ad8, as the hand of niaa
«ie^ds the anotik dvy^ (chqp itxxm. t, 18---14.) Thft
habits cf aasmab ate dspicted^ «f the wild asa and
the horse, the bnfilo^ Hm liver bone of the Niki, tha
«rooodie^ the «agle, and ti&e ostitdi. We eee (chap. zss.nL
r. 18) dmtng the ndlry heat of the eotttib. windi ''the
pare ether i^ead over the thksiy deseit Uiie a moUen nur-

•tar C*)/' When the gifts of natore uespaiuigly bestovrad^
wasEfB peroq>tions ave rendered more aente^ so that he
watches every wiation in fhe sianoephefe aiound him and
in 'tSie ekmda above him; »d in the desert^ as a» the
lifflows of the ooean^ traces back every ehaage to tiie aigns
wliioh fiHKtold it; Tb» climate of tbe arid and rodcy
pMioas of Pahwtine n pariaoalark suited to dive faifth to

' aiujh bbservationa.

Ifeilher is variety of lorm wanting is the poetic iliteralhire

' ttf &6 Hebrews : whfle:from Joshna to Saamel itbz^athee a
Warlike tone^ the little book of* K«th pvesenfls a naboral
jp&tnre of Ae most naive aimplioify^ landtif an imspreasBile

^'dttttin. €kidiie,althepmod'ofliisieiitfa«siasmibrtbe^^

%B BESCBIFnOMS OT NATITBAL SOBNERT

said of it^ that we have nobbing so lovdy in the iAxSm
nmge of epic and idylUc poetry. (^*)

"Evea in later times^ in the earliest memorials of the
literature of tho Arabians^ we discover a faint reflex of <2ist
grandeur of view in the contemplation of nature^ which
00 early rdistingoished the Semitic race: I allude to the
piiituresque description of the Bedonin life of the deserts,
whkh the grammarian A»nai has connected with the great
name of Antar^ and has woven (together with other pre-
mohamedan legends of imightly deeds)^ into a considerable
worL 1%e bwo of this romantic tale is the same Antar * of
the tribe of Abs^ son of the princely chief Sheddad and of a
black slave, whose verses are preserved among the prize
poems, (moaUs^at)/ Which are hung up in the Kaaba. ^e
learned English translator, Terrick Hamilton, has called
attention to the biblical tones in the style of Antar. (7*).
Asmai makes the son of the desert travel to Constantinople,
and thus introduces a picturesque contrast of Greek culture
wstb nomadic simplirity. We should be less surprised at
finding that natizral descriptions of the surface of the Earth
CMKrapy >only a veiy small space in the earliest Arabian-
poetry,* siBce, according to the remark of an accomplished
' Arabic sdkolar, my friend Preytag of Bonn,- narratives of
deeds of arms, and praises of hospitality and of fidelity ' in-
love, are its principal themes; and since scarcely any, if any,-
of its writers were natives of Arabia JPelix. The dreary:
uniformity of sandy deso^ on grassy plainB is ill fitted to
awaken the love ©f naturei, excepting in rare instances and,
iu minds < of & peculiar: cast

Where tlic earth is mmdomed by ferests, the imaginatioii^ •
aa we have «ib?eady j^emavked, is ^the more ocenpled by the

By T«US A3UBIANS. 49

ita&oqpberic phca^omena of riorm, tempest^ and long desired

rain. Among faithful natund pictures of this clase^ I

would ijostance particularly Ajutar's Moallakat^ which desmbes

the pasture fertilised by rain^ and :visited by swarms ci hum-

loing insects (^^} ; the fine descriptions of storms, both by

Amru^l Kais, and in the 7ih book of the celelHAted Hamasa

,{7^), which axe also distinguished by a jbdgk degree of looal

truth; and laatly^the description in theNibegha Dhobyam (7^)

of the, swelling of the Euphrates^ when its waters fdl down

m^gLsses of reeds and trunks of trees. The e^hth book of

the Hamasa, which is entitled " Travel and Sleepiness,'^

naturally .attracted my attention: I soon found Ohat the

''sleei»ness^^ (7^) belongs only to the first fragment of the

bpok, and even ther^ is mDreexcusable^ oiit is ascribed to a

wght journey on a camel.

X have endeavoured in this section to uaf did in a fntg-

mmtoxj manner the different influence whioh the external

wprld^ that is> the aspect of animate aiud inanimate nature,

has exercised at different epoohs, andamong diiEmnt races

a^dnaticms,: on the inward world of thought and feeling.

I have tried to accomplish this object by tracing tli^ughoat

the .history of literature, the parttcukr characteiisliGsOf i^e

vivid manifestation of the feelings oi men in r^aird to nature.

In this, as throughout the whole of the worh^ my aim has

b^en to give not so mmh a complete^ as a general/ vietr, by

tliicseleotion of $»ich e:sainples^a8 should ^^be^ diqyiay the

> peculiaritiea of the various periods and races. I hantre followed

the Greeks. and Ilomans to the gradual estiiiction of those

^fe#i\gS,wii!Bh 'have-given ta dassicid amftiquity in the West

.^^|ivmpe^^]dle iusjtre^ J jiai»/trai» yiEi;Jtl»^wtild»g8't^

(U) DESCRlPXiQOIS jQi* ' KATORAX 8C£>'i!aiY.

r

rfhA Cbrktian fB&ers of tiie ^C3aairGii^ 4be ^fi&e ex^n^essiou '^il
love of imtnie uoffied in the ittclcisioii of the hermitage*
In ocmsidedaig the ii&do<6cnnatdc nations^ (the denominaliifti
heii^ haie taken ;ixi Ha .most restricted 'sense)^ I havQ
tpnssed iramL the poetic works of tiia GennaDB in the midtBe
MgoSi, to those q£ the Ja%hly'CiiHt?atod aneienlfc !Ka9t ArisMc
aatioiis (the Indimii) 4 andcf tiie less gifted Wesfc Arians^ (tfae
jAabitantaof jaoMttfflit him) . JUStoaTs^idglaneefittheGdlfic
fir Gbdio aongSy snd ata nai^ly dkoiy^ered Emnish epic^ H
iiBve (descnibed flie rich percq»ik>n of the life of nattoie
vhicby lA i^Boes of Aiaitkeain <Hr Setmtic origiii^ Ibreaflies
JB the.Butahme poetry of the H^i^w^^ and in the "writmgs df
Sst ikrftfasaiiB. liiBs i have traced the reflected image of the
jiHHMfiC.phfiB«Mmi«Da^aB2iHit*efed'mtheima^ of 'ffab

iwtions of the north and the south^eaUt of iEturope, of Um
west of Asia, of the Persian plateaus, and of tropical India.
Jaasrdur to doiuseire Ndtiaein afi hergrandenr, it seeded to
ne jMoeasaiy ito pwseiit tor under a 'two4dM a^et ; "finft
objiestinrdijr, ae ;an aotoal phenemwon ; and next as ¥e-
iwtcd in Ae fedbags df maBkiad.

jkfler the fadmg of Araoaaicy'Oreek, and Bomaen glory-^-^I
jD^tiraor^fiartfae deatroction of 4he a»caest lyorld-^-^we
§aA in the gveai and inspired foumder dS. afiew ^drM, 33ainte
AKghieri> soaiteied jpaasagea wfaMi man^st ^Qxe tmost
imfoBad seofiftySify io the ^oqieet of estemal 'nature.
S3ie ^jpfliaod at widoh lie lived foliowed innnecBalely thi^ tff
ftar dfidine of tiie mmMfbrelBy df ^ SualsiBn Mmic^iitgers,
IB jtib^ jKMdi side ef the Alps, of whom I iza^e abeaar
qpeken. Dante, .'when treating of natnnft dbjeets, iri^xdrMif
limietf iDrra^famelffian'the paatifoti^, flie isiAjectite^ -krA
tteMgrafe^dkMaeizlB of iib wide>rakige <f

4ae6j)&paiiit|ior iastaae^'at thetjoae of the'Sfst eaab&fci
HkieSwigaieixip {^% ^ sweet imncth of nmaiiig^ and the
49eanUi»g ligkt on the ;gea% agita^d distant jciKor <£ the
sea^ (H ^tnnolar de i^ Bnaaiia) ; ia tbe fifth csntO) ikt
4>iBfiUiig tof the dbodfi aad tiiesvellkig of the riiasis^ irfaMij
isAer 4;he hattk d[ GanpaUiiiio^ osyased the faoc^ of Bqab-
acmte da Id^oateMteo .to <be iost in tiie Amo (7o)« !nie aa-
jtante iBto<thAt&idc:gi!OFe of tne terastrid pandiBe raniMB
ibe poet efthe pinei£we6t eaeair Savcma i *^^ la/pi]iatain4nil lilo
M Qmm'^ f^)9 tHbmee^BarfyjBaDg of ibxrda « heard ia
the tall tree9* The local truth of this aBtnialpiettwe
^DuAiaste mi&i the desoviptioii of the n?ar of 'light in the
hsfiKeeig {wradifle^ b&m which '^japatki burst festib, mk.
aimdst the flowers an. Hit basbv aod itheBy as if iabm-
cated by thfiir p^iuofis^ plunge agaiia into the stream ^^).^
|t seems not iuqpossibk ithatt th» fiotnm msy^ have had
lor its groQfidvork the poet^s leccdlfietioa of >that peoaiittr
fibite of the oeeaiw ia wlmk, dnziagthe beatingaf the w«9m,
luBuaovs .points daeh aboxre iheisudayae, and tbe ^aJerhqind
plami forms amoving sea of qpscUiiigtUghL 'ShdestcmtiiaBaif
wacaseness of the atyle sf fhe Diviaa CciBMhadia aD^mRfiote
tbe depUi Jbad eaia^estness i)f the inqanessMm ptodoced.

liageii^g «aL Bsdoim. .graond^ but nmding tiaeit
fi^gid oomp«Bitioni|i ^ pastoxal tomBOoasi I -miaM' nei^
name &e boiui^i is whiGh Petcareh de8aribeB4!be is^BresBran
iddob ^the ktfej^ ysSky ^ ^mudina made <m ion ^heUi
Luua iRas no moae^ thaa^ i&e «maUfir poeaas of Boaarfbi;
file £cifiad of E^HnsHm of iBafce ; and afe a Iflber pmad
fpae jE^oUe ^ten^as by Tiitooa €oI«Qna.(^).
, WhoBi vtibe suddim iDta^anrae ivhioh toek ^tese anflr
(^pMiaia ber^awfts^ «f pc^htioal dffiiessBfm «a(aadl a xisMt

S2 DESCEIPTIONS OV NATUEAL SCENEBT.

general revival of classieal literature^ we find^ as the fimt
example . among prose writers^ a charming description of
nature from the pen of the lover of the arts, the counselldr
and friend of Eaphael, Cardinal Bembo. His juvemle work,
entitled j£tna Dialogus, gives us an animated pictui-e of the
geographical distribution of plants on the declivity of the
mountain, from the rich corn fields of Sicily to the snow-
covered margin of the crater. The finished work of his
maturer years, the Historise Yenetee^ characterises in a still
more picturesque manner the climate and the vegetation of
the new continent.

At that period every thing concurred to fill the mind at
once with views .of the suddenly enlarged boundaries both
of the earth, and of the powers of man. In antiquity, the
march of the Macedonian army to the Paropamisus, and
to the forest-covered river-valleys of Western Asia, left
impressions derived from the aspect of a richly adorned
exotic nature, of which the vividness manifested itself whole
centuries afterwards in the works of highly gifted writers ;
and now, in like manner, the western nations were acted
upon a second time, and in a higher degree than by the
crusades, by the discovery of America. The tropical world,
with all the richness and luxuriance of its vegetation in the
plain, with all the gradations of organic life on the declivities
of the (UordiUeras, with all the remmiscences of northern'
climates in the inhabited plateaus of Mexico, New Grenada,'
and Quito, was now first disclosed to thevif r of Europeans.
Imagination, without which no truly great work of man can
be accomplished, gave. a peculiar charm ,to the descriptions'
of nature traced by Columbus and Vespucci. The descnp-
^JAin of the coast of Br)Bi^il« by. the laiter, is charaetexUed If '

COLUICBtJS. 53

Hn accurate acquaintance with the poets of ancient and
inodem times ; that given by Columbus of the mild sky of
Paria^ and of the abundant waters of the Orinoco^ flowing
as he imagines from the east of Paradise^ is marked by an
earnestly rehgious tone of mind^ which afterwards,' by the
influence of increasing years, and of the unjust persecutions
which he encountered, became touched with melancholy, and
with a vein of morbid enthusiasm.

In the heroic times of the Portuguese and Castilian
races,' it was not the thirst of gold alone (as has been
asserted, in ignorance of the national character of the period),
but rather a general excitement which led so many to
dare the hazards of distant voyages. In the beginning of
the sixteenth century, the names of Hayti, Cubagua, and
Darien, acted on the imagination of men as in more recent
times, since Anson and Cook, those of Tinian and Tahiti
have done. If the tidings of far distant lands then drew
the youth of the Iberian peninsula, of Planders, Milan, and
Southern Germany, under the victorious banners of the
great Emperor, to the ridges of the Andes and to the
bnming plains of TJraba and Coro ; — in more modern times,
tmder the milder influence of a later cultivation, and as the
earth's surface became more generally accessible in all its
parts, • the restless longing for distant regions acquired
fresh motives and a new direction. The passionate love for
the study of nature which proceeded cliiefly from the north,
inflamed the minds of men; intellectual grandeur of view
became associated with the enlargement of material know-
ledge ; and the particular poetic sentimental turn belonging
to flie period, has embodied itself, since the close of the last
'fenfairy, in Kterary wcwrks ' under forms Which were before

iM DESCBlPnOKS OF NATUBAL SCENERY.

mJ^nowiL If we once more c»6t our eyes on the perbd mt
those great discoveries which prqiared the wsay ftsir tbe
2QodenL tendency of which we have been speaking, we most
in so doing refer preaninegady to those descriptions 4if
nature which have been left us by Cohunbus himselfl It is
only recently that we have obtained the knowledge of his
cwu ship's jounial, of luB letters to the treasurer Sanch«i,
to Donna Juana de la Torre ^ovecneas of &e Infant Don
JuaUy and to Queen Isabella. In my critical examination of
the history of the geogiaiphy of the 15th and 16th c^tu-
ries(^^}^ I have sought to show with how deep a feeUng and
perception of the forms and the beauty of nature the great
discoverer was endowed^ and how he described the face of
the earth, and the '^ new heaven'^ which opened to his view,
C' viage nuevo al nuevo delo i mundo que fasta ^ntonnes
estaba en occulto'^), with a beauty .and simplicity of ex-
pression which can only be fuUy appredated by those wh#
are familiar with the ancient force of the langus^ as it
existed at the period.

The aspect and physiognomy of the vegetation; ibs
impenetrable thickets of the foreste; "in which one can
hardly distmguish which are the flowers and leaves belonging
10 eacii stem j" the wild luxuriance which clothed the humid
shores; the rose-coloured flamingoes fishing at the mou&
of the rivers in the early morning, aud giving animation to the '
landscape ;— attract the attention of lie old navigator while !
sailing along the coast of Cuba, between the email Lucayan-
islands and the JardiniUo^ which I also have wited. Eaoh
norlj discovered land appears to Hm still more beautiful ih«L
those he had before described; he complains ihat he caimcA find
W^ in w^oh to irecord the ^weet imptemwa which htlm \

G0LinCB99. 55

vaoeived. WkoIIy tmacquaintecl with hotBJoj, (sitfaotigii
ihrott^ the inflaence of Jewish and Arabian phjsidans
scMiie superficial knowledge of plants had at that time
extended into Spain)^ the simple love of nature leads him
to discriminate tmly between the many strange forms
presented to his view. He already distinguished in Caba
seven or eight different kmds of palms ''more beantifal stnd
loftier than date-trees/' (variedades de palmas superiores a
las nuestras en sn beUeza y altnia) ; he writes to his friend
Angfaiera» that he has seen on the same plain palms and
pines^ (palmeta and pineta), wonderfully grouped together;
he r^ards the vegetation presented to his view with a
^ance so acnte, that he was the first to obsenre that^ on the
moontains of Qbao, th^e are pines whose fruits are not
fir cones^ but berries like the ohves of the Axarafe de
Serilla; and, toeite one more and very remarkable example^
Cidumbus^ as I have aheady noticed'(^)^ separated the
genus Podocarpus from the family of Abietineee.

'* The loveliness of this new handy*' says the discovner,
''far surpasses thai of Hie campfta de Cordoba. The trees
are all bright with ever-verdant'fohage^ and perpetually laden
with fruits. The plants cm the ground are tall and full of
blossoma. The breezes are mild Uke those of April in CastiDe;
tiie nightingales sing more sweetly than I can describe. At
night other small birds aang sweetly^ and I also hear
our grasshoppers and frogs* Once I came into a deepfy
enclosed harbour, and saw hi^ mountains which no human
eye had seen before, from winch the lovely waters (Hndas
agpias) "feitreamed down* The moontain was covered with
iiis, piiMs, and other frees of very various form, and adorned
with beautiful flowers. Ascending the river which poured

59 DESCBIFTIONS O? NATUBAL SCENERY*

itself into the baj^ I was astoublied at the cool shade^. the
crystal clear water, and the number of singing birds. It.
seemed to me as if I could never quit a spot so delightful,-^
as if a thousand tongues woiild fail to .describe it, — as if the
spell-bound hand would refuse to \vTite. (Paxa haoer relaciou
a los Eejes de las cosas que vian, no bastaran mil lenguas a
referillo, ni la mano para lo escribir, que le pa^ecia ques*
taba encantado.)'^ {^)

We here leani from the journal of an unlettered seaman,

the power which the beaujty of nature, manifested in her

individual forms, may exert on a . su^eeptible , mind.

Feelings ennoble language ; for the prose of the Admiial,

especially when, on his fourth voyage, at thes age of 67, he

relates his wonderful dream on the coast of Yeragua (^^),

is, if not more eloquent, yet f^x more moving .than the

allegorical pastoral romance^ ; of , Boccaccio and the . two

Arcadias of Sannazaro and of Sydney;, than Gaxoilasso's

Salicio y Nemoroso ; or than the Diana of Jorge de Montci-

mayor. The elegiac idyllic element was unhappily too long

predominant in Italian and Spanish literature ; it required

the fresh and hving picture which Cervantes has drawn of

the adventures of the Knight of La Mancha, to . efface the

(jalatea of the same author. The pastoral romancey

however ennobled in the works . of these great writers by

beauty of language and tenderness of, feeling, is from its

nature, like the allegorical artifices of the .intellect of the

middle ages, cold and wearisoipe* . Individuality of obscpva-

tion alone leads to truth to nature; in the fimest descriptive

stanzas of the " Jerusalem Delivered,^* impressions deriv^

from the pget's recoll^tipn of. the picteuresque landscape of

Sorrento^ have been supposed to be recpgniwd {V*) •

CAHOENS. 57

That tnith to nature which springs from actual con-
templation^ shines most richly in the great national epic of
Portuguese literature ; it is as if a perfumed air from Indian
flowers breathed throughout the whole poem, written under
the sky of the tropics, in the rocky grotto near Macao and
in the Moluccas. It is not for me to confbm a bold
sentence of Friedrich Schlegers, according to which the
Lusiad of Camoens excels Ariosto in colouring and richness
of bncj ; (^) but as an observer of Nature, I may well add
that in the descriptive portion of the Lusiad, the poet's
inspiration^ the ornaments of language, and the sweet tones
of metanoholy, never impair the accuracy of the representa-
tion of physical phsenomena. Bather, as is always the case
when art draws from pure sources, they heighten the living
impressions of grandeur and of truth in the pictures of
oatuite. Inimitable are the descriptions in Camoens of the
nefver ceasing mutual relations between the air and sea,
between the varying form of the clouds above, their meteoro-
logical changes, and the different states of the surface of the
ocean. He shews us this sur.ace at one time, as, when
curled by gentle breezes the short waves glance sparklingly
in the play of the reflected sunbeams ; and at another, when
the ships of Coelho* and Paul de Gama, overtaken by a
dreadful tempest, sustain the conflict of the deeply ngiiated
elements {^^). Camoens is in the most proper sense of the
term, a great sea painter. He had fought at the foot of Atlas
in the empire of Morocco, in the Red Sea, and in the Persian
Gulf; twice he had sailed round the Cape, and for sixteen years
iratched the phflenomena of. the ocean on the Cliinese and
Indian shores. He describes the electric fires of St. £Imo,
(the Castor and Pollus: of the ancieut Greek navigaton)

IS DESCBlTnONS.e8 SCMXmAL SCENEBT.

>iltt Jmag HgH wved to the marbe/' {^. Be piioto
Ibe dftQgeruthisateaiDg urater-spont in ks gradttsl devek;
lopment; ^koTV the clotid^ wo^en of thin vapoiB"^ wldobi
nmnd in a dbcle^ and seeding down a slendi^ t«ibe saefesi
up the flood as if atMrst; and how^ when the blaek doBcP
Jam dnrnk its fill> the foot oi the cone reeedes^^ and flying
Wk to the Aj, ^resptores to* the waves^ aa fresh water^ tii»
sd(t stream which it had dmwn from theon wkh a ssrgiiqp
woke" {9^). "Let the book-learned/' says the poet — '
amd his taunt might abnost aft well applj to liie preseei
tone — '* iaey to exj^ain the wonderfol things hidden from tli0»
w«Kld ; they wlio> guided by (so^aUed) sci^oe afid^heirewlr
o»ieeptions oidy, are; so wdBrng te pvonounce asfabe^whatsi
hmsA from the mouth of the bwIw whose (M^ giade is
dipeneiice.

•' Gamoeiis shinesy however^ not only in the deseriptkni ef
SBfegle phssmnfRiia^ but abo' where large masses ace sc^Qk
pDdkended in (me liew^ The third eanto paiiils with a t&m
tndts the whole of Euix^e^ from &e coldest noitb^ ^to thc»
Luiiitanian kingdom, and the strait where Hercules aecdm^
plashed h» kst labotor'' (s^). The maHnere sad state el
mdkalion of the ^ffiBreot nations are aihided to. From the
Frusfcians, the Mnecofites, and the tribes ^ que o tSkeum
frio-kva/ he hastens to the gb»ious Mds of Hdlas, ^que
i^eastes os peitos eloquentes, e os juiaos de alta phantama.^
In the tenth oonto th^ view becomes stiU mere esten^M ;
Ihetye conducts Gama to the summil of alc^ mouatafit t»
shew him tiie seca^ets of tite struetixre of the univ^scf
(''machka do mundo''), toA kv diselose to han the eoutMl
df41ie j^ttiels, (aecoiding to the tiews of Ftolenvf). f^ II
iit^iPiBoii iivtiie stykr erf Daflte, and ae the EaHli JB 4ki

9fliitir« of moticai ir^^e.m ike dtwanptiw of ife gUbcs

ft«MFie« of aU thft cMnlms then iiunm^ asd d tknr

yrodoiiioQ*. (m) £wi tbe ''kod aC tha Hol^ Qtom^'";

(fi0mi),iR iimm4^ aiMl thoooaitevjbicbMageUaiD diaoo^Den^

f^t^ the aie^ but^oot hgr tlie loyalty «f » am q£

.When I hfdSoK astoUed Gamoens. as eapacUlgr at

painiierj, k waft to iBdioaila tirat tiai aipwl of nahva ob Aa

Ivid seeam ta hafa atiiaded Um Iae& yividl]!^ IBiwinanil

kui 99nad»d witti jw^m^ tbai tbe wliola poem oonjIaiB^

aihnbikdy no trace ol giapliieai dasenplim of ihefe§eftiiM»

^ tiffi ifl:ppic8, and iia peoulisf j^saagfrnnj and fsnuu

He only notieet tibe spiete and oibet ptodmotionBiabicb bew

•omiMnaal value* Tbe epiaodeofibe magic iadand(^)dlM%

iode^^ praaent a chanmngrlaodaoiqpapietnre^ bat, as baile

aED '^lUiB de Yenus/^ tbe yegetatioii coiuneta of ^fiagiMft

ngntiea^ dtiena, lemon tiee% asd pamegnBuitBa Z** all

bekngizig to tbe cbmalea of Senlb ^kxr&pt. La tibe

wiliBgB ef tbe gred^ dncoTeter of tbe> new woildj we indl

Inr greater ddi^ in the fbresiift o£ tbe eoaate aeeB by hbe^

and far more attention to tbe forma of ibe Yegrtabh

kingdem ; biii^>diDnld be remariced, thai Cokamkm, ^wdllthg

tbe jonisai ol lus voyage, seeorda im it flia>liriiig impreaaiaBU

9ies^ day* The e|ae of Camoens^ on tbef other band, ie

liitten to cdebiiai^ the gireat aohkr^emesAsof the PortugjMBft^

To b«f e borrowed from native hogaag/^^ unoeioth mmm^ «C

flmais, and to< have interwoven them in the desenptioaift* eC

laiBdaeapea fommf; tbe beekgronnd to tbe aotora m bk

Demtive, n%ht ha^e flfpeared but litiie attraciiFe to th^

jeefc Qgcnatomed to baeuodious aoanda.

^ : Bjr the.cMb of the knightly form of Caoioani^baa pfln^

Will fbieed^eequallji comantia one of m Spaiasb
vol.. II. p

60 DBSCEIFntlNS Ou* NATURAL SCENERY.

who served under the banners of the great Emperor in Pi^
and Chilly and sung in those distant regions the deeds of
arms in which he had borne a distinguished part. But in
the whole Epic of the Araucana of Don Alonso de £rcill%
the immediate presence of volcanoes dad with eternal
snows, of vaUeys covered with tropical forests, and of arms
of the sea penetrating far into the land, have scarcely called
forth any description which can be termed graphicaU The
excessive praise which Cervantes bestows on Ercilla, on the.
occasion of the ingenious satirical review of Don Quixote's
books, is probably to be attributed only to the ydiement,
rivalry subsisting at that time between Spanish and Italiaa
poetry, though it would appear to have misled Voltaire and
several modem critics. The Araucana is, indeed, a work,
imbued with a noble national feeling ; and the description .
which it contains of the manners of a wild race who perish
in lighting for the freedom of their native land, is not
without animation ; but Ercilla's style is heavy, loaded to
excess with proper names, and without any trace of true
poetk inspiration. (^)

We recognise this essential element, however, in several .
strophes of the Eomancero Caballeresco {^) ; we perceive its
presence, mixed with a vein of religious melancholy, in the
writings of Fray Luis de Leon, — as, for example, where he
celebrates the '^ eternal I'lminaries (resplandores etemales)
of the starry heaven'*; — (^®) and we find it in the great
creations of Calderon. The most profound critic of the
dramatic literature of different countries, my friend Ludwig
TKeck, has remarked the frequent occurrence in CalderoU
AUd his cotemporaries of lyrical strains in varied metres, ^
dft^ containihg dazzlingly beautiful pictures of the oceaiki of ^

i

CALDEBON. SHAKSPEAKX, 61

tioimtiims^ of wooded vaUeys^ and of gardens; but these
j&cttires are always introduced in allegorical applications,
and are characterised by a species of artiGcial brilliancy. Tn
leading them we feel that we have before us ingeniow
descriptions^ recurring with only slight variations^ and
clothed in well-sounding and harmonious verse; but we do
not feel that we breathe the free air of nature; the reality
of the mountain scene^ and the shady valley^ are not made
present to oar imagination. In Calderon's play of "Life is
^ Dream/' (la vida es sueno), he makes Prince Sigismund
lament his captivity in a series of gracefully drawn contrasts
with the freedom of aU living nature. He paints the birds,,
"which fly across the wide sky with rapid wiBg." the fish,
which, but just escaped from the sand and shallows where
they were brought to life, seek the wide sea, whose
boundless expanse seems still too small for their bold range,
Hven the stream meandering among flowers, finds a free
pdth through the meadow : " and 1," exclaims Sigismund
despairingly, *' who have more life than they, and a spirit
more free, must endure an existence in which I enjoy Jess
freedom.'* In a similar manner, too often disfigured by
antitheses, witty comparisons, and artificial turns from the
school of Gongora, Don Pemando speaks to the king of Fez ,
in the ^'Steadfast Prince" (99).

I have referred to particular instances, because they show
how in dramatic poetry, which is chiefly concerned with
action, passion, and character, " descriptions of natural .
objects become as it were only mirrors in which the mental
emotions of the actors in the scene are reflected. Sl^ak- .
speare, who amidst the pressure of his animated action hay^.
kearcety ever time and opportunity to introduce deliberate

A2 DESCEIFnOXS OP NATUlUIi SOKNEBT.

descriptions of naturil scenes^ does yet so punt thflnlqr
occurrences^ by allusions^ and by the emoiiQiiB of the aiotii^
personages^ that we seem to see them before our eyes, sod
to live in them. We thus live in the midsnmmffivn^ht ia
the wood; and in the latter scenes x>t the Meffcbaot of
Yenice we see the moonshine bnghtening the worm suraMr
nighty without direct descriptions. An actual' and ebboiato
description of a natural scene occurs, however, in King Lear,
where Edgar^ who feigns himself mad, lepreseuhs to his
blind father^ Gloucester, while on the plain, tliai they tie
mounting to the summit of Dover Cliff. The picture drawn
of the downward view into the depths below actually tions
one gidd/' (loo).

If in Shakspeare the inward life of feeling, and the grand
simplicity of the language^ animate thus wonderfully thain"
dividual expression of nature^ and render her actually present
to our imagination; in Milton^s sublime poem of Paradise
Lost, on the other hand, such descriptions ar^ from the vezy
nature of the subject^ magnificent rather than graphic. All
the riches of imagination and of language are poured forth
in painting the loveliness of Paradise; but the deaeiip*
tion of v^etation could not be otherwise than general
and undefined. This is also the ease in Thomson's pleasing
didactic poem of The Seasons. Kalidasa^s po^n on the aaiofi
subject, the Bitusanhara, which is more ancient by ahsve
seventeen centuries, is said by critics deeply versed in
Indian literature to individualise more vividly the vigorous
nature of the vegetation of the tropics; but it wants the
charm which, in Thomson^ arises from the more vaijej
division of the seasons which is proper to the h^bst
Utitudes; the transition from froit-bringing antoiiii^, tQ

v(mmN raosi: wbxtbbs. $$

; and from winter to zeanimating spring; and fbe
|i0teres afforded bj the varied laborious or pleasurable fot*
suits ci men bdonging to the different portions of the year.
Amving at tiie period nearest to onr own time> we find
that^ sinoe the middle of the last century^ descriptive prose
liflg more particttlarljdeveloped itself, and with peculiar vigour.
iLkhongh the study of nature^ enlarging on every side^ has
increased beyond measure the mass of things known to us^
yet vn&agBt the few who are susceptible of the higher inqpi-
ntiov whidi this knowledge is capable of affording, the in-

* tettactual contemplation of i^ture has W)t sunk oppressed
utt^ ikt load^ but has rather gained a wider comprehrai-*
siveness and a loftier elevation^ since a deeper insight has
been obtained into the structure of mountain masses (those
atoned eemoteries of periid^ orgtoic forms)^ and into the
gtographical distrilmtion of plants and animals, and the re-
ktionship of different races of men. The first modem
pvose writers who have powerfolly contributed to awakenj
through the influence of the imagination, the keen per-^
eeption of natural beauty, the delight in contact with
nakiie, and the desire for distant travel which is their almost
inseparable cc»npanion, were in France, Jean Jacques
Bousseau, Buffon, Bemardin de St.**Pierre, and (to name
esceptionally one living writer), my Mend Auguste de Oha-
tcaubriand ; in the British islands the ingenious Flayfidr;
and in Germany, George Forsta*, who was the companion of
Gook on Ms second voyage of circumnavigation, and who
was gifted botii with eloquence and with a mind peculiarly
favourable to every generalisation in tlie view of nature.
' Z imist not attempt in the^e pages to exsmine the charac-

'^' iBtS^a^ of Aese diffl^^nt writers; or whst it is that^ in

9^ BESCBIFnONS OF THJLTUBJLL SCENEBT.

works so extensivdy known^ sometimes lends to their i]a- *
scriptions of scenery such grace and charm^ or at others
disturbs the impressions which the authors desire to awaken;
but it may be permitted to a traveller who has derived hia
knowledge principally from the immediate contemplation
of nature^ to introduce here a few detached considerations
respecting a recent^ and on the whole little cultivated^ branch
of literature,

5uffon, with much of grandeur and of gravity,— embracing
simultaneously the structure of the planetary system, the
wprld of organic life, hght, and magnetism — and far more ^
profound in his physical investigations than his cotempo-
raries were aware of — ^when he passes from the description
of the habits of auimals to that of the landscape, shews m
his artificially-constructed periods, more rhetorical pomp than
individual truth to nature ; rather disposing the mind gene-
Tslly to the reception of exalted impressions, than taking
hold of it by such visible paintings of the actual life of
nature, as should render her actually present to the imagi-
nation. In perusing even his most justly celebrated efforts
in this department, we are made to feel that he has
never quitted middle Europe, and never actually beheld
the tropical world which he engages to describe. What, ;
however, we particularly miss in the works of this great \
writer, is the harmonious connection of the representation t
of nature with the expression of awakened emotion ; we miss,
in him almost all that flows from the mysterious analogy^
between the movements of the mind and the phsenomena
perceived by the senses.

Greater depth of feeling, and a fresher spirit of life, breathe
in Jean Jacques Bouaseau^ in £emardin de St.-Herre, imct

KOUSSEAU. 8T.-PIERRE.

9^'

in Chateaubriand. If in the first-named writer (whose
principal works were twenty years earliex than Boffon's fim-
cifiil Epoques de la Nature) (*<>*) I allude to his fascinating'
eloquence, and to the picturesque descriptions of Clarens
and La Meillerie on Lake Leman, it is because, in the most
celebrated works of this ardent but little informed plant-
collector, poetical inspiration shews itself principally in the-
inmost peculiarities of the language, breaking forth no less •
overflowingly in his prose, than in KlopstocVs, SchiUer's,
Gbethe^s, and Byron's imperishable verse. Even where
an author has no purpose in view immediately connected
with the study of nature, our love for that study may still be
enhanced by the magic charm of a poetic representation of
the life of nature, although in regions of the earth ahready
familiar to us.

In referring to modem prose writers, I dwell with pe-
culiar complacency on that small prodaction of the creative
imagination to which Bemardin de St.-Pierre owes the fairest
portion of his literary fame— I mean Paul and Virginia : a
work such as scarcely any other literature can shew. It is*
the simple but h'ving picture of an island in the midst of the^
tropic seas, in which, sometimes smiled on by serene and
favouring skies, sometimes threatened by the violent conflict
of the elements, two young and graceful forms stand out
picturesquely from the wild luxuriance of the vegetation of
the forest, as from a fl.owery tapestry. Here, and in the
Chaumi^re Indienne, and even in the Etudes de la Nature,
(which are unhappily disfigured by extravagant theories and
erroneous physical viewsi), the aspect of the sea, the grouping
oif the clouds, tiie rustling of the breeze in the bushes of tho
bamboo, and the waving of the lofty palms, are painted with

^ DESCBIFEXON8 Of KATUEAL SCENERY.

inimitikUe^ truth. S^mafdin de St.-Pierre^s master-woi^.
£Mi1 and Yirgisia^ aocompanied me into tibe zGoe to whidi
it 0vee its oiagin. It was read there for many years by my
4ear ^eampaaion and friend Bonpland and myself^ and there —
Qft ^im appeal to personal feelings be forgiven) — nnder the
skat bi^tness of the tropkal sky^ or when^ in the rainy
Samson on the shores of the Orinoco^ the thunder crashed
aiid the fiasfaing lightning iilnminated the forest^ we w^re
4fi^ly impressed aad penetrated with the wonderful truth
wOi which this UtOe work paints the power of natnie in tlie
tEopical zone in all its peculiarity of character. A similar
inn grasp of special features^ without impairing the general
mpressioai or depriving the external materials of the free
aeid animating Weath of poetic imagination^ characterises in
m. even higher degpee the ingenious and tender anthor of
Atala, Bcn^, the Martyrs^ and the Journey to Greece and
falestine. The coBtrasted landscapes of the most varied
'fGriioo& of the esorth's surface are brought together and made
to paw before the mind^s eye with wonderful distinctness
«f vvsion: the serious grandeur of historic remembrances
mild aldne have given so much of depth and repose to the
BBjsressions of a rapid journey.

la our German fatherland^ the love of external natm-e
' dwwed itsdf but too long^ as in Italian and Spanish litera-
tore, mider the forms of the idyl, the pastoral romance, and
dedadic poems : this was the course followed by the
iBeondan traveller Pawl Flemming, Brockes, Ewald von Kleist,
kt whom we i»c<^iiise a mind ftdl of feeling, Hagedora,
SdoAKm Gessntr, and by one of the greatest naturalists of
aft tinea^ Halkr, whose local descriptions present, however,
lavlter defiaed txitlinds and more objectiTe truth of colour.

TBAYEUiBfiS OV TSB 14fl!H AN]> 15TH OratUBISS. if

JA that tune the elegiac id^c denaeirt predomfamted in ft
liesvy style of landscape poetiy^ in which, enran in Yofls, thd
noble and profound dbsaioal student of antiquify, the poverty
of t^ mafcmals could not be veQed by happy and cie?ated^
as well M Ughly finished diction, it wns not xmtS the
stady of tiie earth^s sorfiiee gained depth and yariety, voA
natural science^ no longw limited to tabidar ennmerations of
exkaordinaxy oecnrrences and prodnotioiis, rose to the greM
views of compaxa^e geognqphy, that this finish of language
eotold become available in aiding to impart hie and freshness
to the picttues of distant zones.

' The older travellers of the middle ages, sndi as Jolni
MandeviSe (1853), Hans Schiltberger of Mirnich (1426)^
and Bafnhard von Breytenbach (1486), still delight ns by
an amiable naivete, by the freedom with which Ihey write^
and the apparent feeling of security with which they come
before a pabHc who, being wholly unprepared, listen with
the greater cariosity and readiness of belief, because Aey
have not yet learnt to fed ashamed of being amused or even
astonished. The interest of books of travels was at that
period almost wholly dramatic; and the indispensable mix*
ture of the marvellous which they so easily and naturally
acquired, gave them also somewhat of an epic colouring.
The manners of the inhabitants of the different countries
are not so much described, as shewn incidentally in the
contact between the travellers and the natives. The vege-
tation is unnamed and unheeded, ex^cepting where a fruit
ef particularly pleasant flavour or curious form, or a stem
oar leaves of extraordinary dimensions, induce ft special notice*
Amongst animals, the kinds which Uiey are most fond of re-
a!Hirking are, first, those which shew sonde resemblance to the

t& DBSCKIFCiaN9 Q9 27ATU%4I< SOBNSBT*

human form, and next those wfaioib are most inld ttid moife
formidable to coaa. The cotemporaries of these travellwp
gave the fullest credence to daog«» which few among thear
had shared; the slowness of navigation^ and the absence*,
of means of communication^ caused the Indies, as aU tropksal'
cpnntries were then called^ to appear at an immeasarable>
distance. Columbus ir9& as yet scascely justified in sayings
as he did in his letter to Queen Isabdb^ '^the earth is not
yeiy large : it is much less than people imagine'^ i}^^).

In respect to composition^ these. ahnost-forgotlen bookBi
Qf travels of the middle ages had> notwithstanding the poivertf
of their materials^ great advantages over most of our modem
vpyagea. Tuey nad the unity which every work of art re^
quires: everything was coniiected with an action^ t. e^
subordinated to the joi^ey itself, 'JDie interest aoose firom
the simple; animatedj and usually implicitly believed narrattve
of difficulties overcome. Christian traveUers^ unacquainted
with the previous travels of Arabs, Spanish Jews^ and
proselytizing Buddhists^ always supposed themselves to be
the &st to see and describe everything. The remoteness ^
and even the dimensions of objects were magnified by the
obscurity which seemed to veil the East and the interior of
Asia. This attractive unity of compositicm is necessarily
wanting in the greater part of modem travels, and especially
in those undertaken for scientific purposes ; in these, what
is done yields precedence to what is observed ; the action
almost disappears under the multitude of obsarvations* A
true dramatic interest can now only be looked for, in
aiduous^ thouj{j|i perhaps little instructive ascents of momi-
tains, and above all adventurous navigationa of nntcavwsad
seas m voyages of discovery properly so called, and in the

i

UOUWm TBATELLVKS. 69

Mfbl fic^vdes of the Polar regions^ where the sttrronnding
itflobitioii and the lonely situation of the mariners^ cut off
jhon all hmnaa aid^ isolate the picture^ and cause it to act
voce stimngly on the imagination of the reader. If the
tbo¥e considerations render it undmably evident that in
Bbdem books oftranreb ^ active elanent necessarily fiedls
into the background^ affording for the most part merely a
ocnmeetin^ thread iHieveby the successive observations of
nature or of maimers are linked tc^ther, yet ample com-
pjotsalion may be derived from the treasures of observation,
horn grand views of the universe, and from the laudable
eedaavoinr in eseh writer to avBil himself of the peculiar ad-
vantages which his native language may possess for clear
and aninubed description. Hhe benefits for which we are
inaArfitedixi modem cultivation are the eonstantly advancing
eidargement of our field of view, the increasing wealth in
ideas and feelings, and their active mutual influence. With-
Qbjf) leaving our native scaI, wc may now not only be informed
wlmt is the charact^ and form of the earth's crust in the
iftost distant zones, and what are the pknts and animals
which enliven its sur&ee, but we may also expect to be pre-
sieoated with such pictures as may produce in ourselves a
vi^d participadon in a portion at least of those impressions
which in each zone man receives from external nature. To
satisfy these demands, — this requirement of a species of in*
teSlectual delight unknown to the ancient world, — is one of
the efforts of modem times ; the effort prospers, and the work
ad:vanees, both because it is the common work of all culti*
vatfid nations, and because the increasing in^ovement of
tlleDnfteaiis of transfK^, both by sea and land, renders the

70 DESCSIFFKXire OV KATfTUU. 8CENEBT.

whde earth more aeeeasiUe^ and farings into eoipgnflDii ite
lemotest portioiis.

I have here attempted to indicate^ howcr& vaguely, ti»
manner in vhidi the Irardler's power of presenting the leMit
of his opportonities of observation^ the infdsion of afire^ iife
into the descriptive dement of liteatare, and flie variety of
the views whidi are contimially opening b^rens on ^ vast
theatre of the producing and destroying forces, niaj a& tend to
enlarge the scientific stady of nature and to indte to its pnisnit.
The writer who, in OHr German Hteratnie, has, aoe(»ding to
my fedmgs, opened the path in tins direction with the
greatest d^ee of vigour and success, was my distinguished
teacher and friend George Porster. Through him has been
commenced a new era of scientific traveQing, having for its
object the comparative knowledge of nations and of nature
in different parts of Die earth's surface. GKfted with refined
esthetic feeHng, and reigning the fresh and Uving pidnms
with which Tahiti and the other fortunate islands of the
Pacific had filled his imagination (as in later years that of
Charles Darwin) (*®^), George Porsrtcar was the first graee-
folly and pleasingly to depict the dilferent gradations of
vegetation, the relations of climate, and the various articles
df food, in their bearing on tile habits aftd maimers of different
tribes according to their differences of nee and of previous
habitation. All that can give trutii, mfividuality, and
graphic distinctness to the representation of an exotic nature,
8 united in his writings : not only his excellent account of
lie second voyage of Captain Cook, but still more his smaller
works, contain the germ of much which, at a later p^od,
Jmloeen brought to maturity (i^). 'But, for this ndble/

KQDSXN ^lUiVllLUaUt. 71

aeuiitivey and etrer-hopefol spirit, a fortunate and
was not reserved.

If a diqparagMig 8en9e lu» siHseiiiBes been attached to tiie
tenos ^^ descriptive and landscape poetry/^ as applied to the
xnu&eroiis descriptions of natural scenes and objects which in
itie niost modfffn tisoes have nu>ie especially enriched German,
^French, Eolith, and North American literatures, yet sneh
oeiMHue is only properly applicable to the abuse of the sup-
posed enlaig^Oftent of the field of art Yendfied descriptions
of Butural objects, sndb as at the close ol a long and dis-
tinguished litenoy caeeer were given by Ddille, cannot be
legBOpdeA, notwithstanding the r^n^aents of language and
of metre exp^ded on them, as the poetry of external nature
in the higlier sense of the term: they lack poetic inspiration,
and ace theiref(»e strangers on true poetic ground; they are
cpld and meagre, as is all that glitteors with mere oatwsffd
'Ofnament* But if what has been called (as a distinct and
independent form) '^descriptive poetry,^' be justly blamed,
such disapprobation cannot assuredly apply to an eam^
endeavour, by the force of language, — by the power of sig-
nificant words,-^to bring the richer contents of our modem
knowledge of nature before the contemplation of the imagih
nation as well as of the intellect. Should means be left
fimemployed whereby we may have brought home to us not
only the vivid picture of distant zones over which others have
wandered, hxA also a portion even of the enjoyment afforded
by the immediate contact with natmre ? The Arabs say
figntatively but truly that the best description is tiiat in which
the ear is transformed into an eye (*^). Jt is one of the
^vils of the present time that an unfortunate predilection for
an empty species of poetic prose, and a tendency to indulge

in senimental effusions^ has seksed BinmHaneousIy in diiSereiit
oountrifes on authors otherwise possessed of merit as tra-
^.dkrs, and as writers on subjeote of Mtnral history. This
nizture is still more anpkaang^ when the style^ from the'
absence of literary cultivation^ and especially of all true in-
wd spring of emotion, degenerates into rhetorical inflation
and .spurious sentimentality. Descriptions of nature^ I'
would here repeat^ may be sharply defined and sdentifiealljr
cckrrect^ without being deprived thereby of the vivifying
breath of imagination. The poetic dement must be derived
from a recognition of the links which U3!dte the serisuoui^
'with the int^ectualj from a feeMngof the universal extensioti^
the xecipiFocal limitation^ and the uidty of the forces whidh '
constitute the life of Nature. The more sublime the objects^
the more car^Uy must all outward adornment of language '
be avoided. The true- and proper etf<ect of a pietore of '
nature depends uposi its composition^ and the inqpression
prpdueed by it can oidy be disturbed aood marred by the "
intrusions of elaborate appeals on the part of its pr^senter^.
He who, familiar with the great works of antiquity^ and in
secure possession of the riches of his native tongue^ knows how
to render with simplicity and characteristic truth that whicli
he has received by his own eontemplation^ wiU nbt'&flr
in the impression which he desires to convey; and' thti
risk of failure will be less^ asin depicting external' nature^ '
and not his own frame of mind, he leaves unfettered iht
freedom of feeling in oihers.

But it is not alone the animated description of those
richly adorned lands of the equinoctial zone, in which in->
tensity of light and of humid warmth accelerates and
heightens the development of all organic germs, which has

{Qxmslied in our clajs a povscfol incentive to the generd
rtody of nature : the secret chann excited by a deep insight
into organic life i» not limited to the tropical world; every
ic^n of the earth offers the wonders of progressive forma*
tion and development^ and the varied connection of recorring
or slightly deviating types. Everywhere diifused is the
twfol domain of those powerfiil forces, which in the dark
storm clouds that veil the siky, as w^ as in the deUcate
tissues of organic substances, resolve tiie ancient discord of
the elements into harmonious union. Therrfore, wherever
spring unfolds a bud, from the equator to the frigid zone,
cor minds may receive and may rejoice in the inspiration of
naJiure pervading every part of the wide range of creation*
Well noay our German fath^eland cherish such belief; where
is the more soatbem nati<» who would not envy us the
gieat master of our poetry, through all whose works there
breathes a profound feeling of external nature, seen alikein the
Sorrows of Werter, in the Seminiscences of Italy, in the Meta«
morphoses of Plants, and in his MiseeUaneous Poems. Who
has more eloquently excited his cotemporaries to '^ solve the
fitacred enigma of the umversei'' (^' des Weltalls heilige BSth-
isel zu losen^') ; and to renew tiie ancient alliance which in
the youdi of human kind united philosophy, physical science,
and poetry in a^ common botod? Who has pointed with
more powerful charm to that land, hb intellectual home,
where

Sin sanfter Wind vom blaueni Himmd weSr^
J)ie MjFZtAJiill, mil tab der liurbeer stehlf

' i 1

1

HTClTEMEirrS to the study op WATUW8,

II. — ^Lsndscape pamtmg*--Gci^liical rfipreseoi^tioa of the phpEofr
, noBay of plants — Cbaracteiistic form and aspect of vegetatioii

in diifereiit zones.

Ab fte^k aiad vivid deseriptions ef natural soenoi and ohgedtt
ore suited to enbanoe a laf« for the sktdj of satuie^ ao ain
ia landscape paintti^. Both shew to us the external wodA
m bU its rieh varieiy of forms^ and both aia oapabk^ m
various degrees^ aoeordiiq; as they aze more or less h^^pil^
eonoeived^ of Uaking fogeth^ the outward and the inwaid
world. It is the teudeaej to iotm mA liaks which macki
the last and highest aim of lepresentative art; bui^ the
scientific object to whidi these pages axe devoted, restricts
ibem to a differ<^nt point of view ; and Ismdscape painting eaR
be here considered only as it Ininga before us tiie charaiv
teristic physio^cmy of differait positions of the eartlf vt
surface, as it increases the longing desire for distant voyagai^
and as, in a manner equally instructive and agreeable^ ifc
incites to fuller intercourse with nature in her freedom*

In classical antiquity, froin the peculiar direction of the
Qreek and Boman mind, lancbcape painting, Hke the poetic
description of sceneiy^ could scarcely become an indepen-
dent object of art: both were used only as accessories.
Employed in complete subordination to other objeots.

hndsoape pamting long served merely as a background to
historical compositioii^ or as an accidental ornament in the
decoration of painted walls. The epic poet^ in a similar
manner^ sometimes marked the locality of particular events
by a picturesque description of the landscape^ or, as I might
again term it^ of the background, in front of which the
acting personages were moving. The history of art teaches
how the subordinate auxiliaiy gradually became itself a
principal object, until landscape painting, separated from
true liistorical painting, took its place as a distinct fona»
Whilst this separation was being gradually effected, the
human figures wece sometimes inserted as merely pecondar j
features in a mountainous or woodland soene^ a marine or a>
garden view. It hae been justly remarkedi in reference
to the ancients, that not only did painting remain subog^
dinate to sculpture but more especially, that the feeling
lor picturesque beauty of landscape reproduced by the
ftxidl was not entertained by thraaa at all, but is wholly of
•modem growth*

Graphical indications of the peculiar features of a district
must> however, have existed in the earliest Greek paintings^
if (to cite particular instances) Mandrodes of Samos, as

0

Herodotus tells us(^<^), had a painting made for the great
Persian king of the passage of the army across the Bos-^
phorus; fx if FQlygnotus(^<'') painted the destruction al
Troy in the Lesche at Pelphi. Among the pictures de«
scribed by the elder Philostratua mention is even made of m
landscape, m which smoke was seen to issue from the sum->
mit of a volcano, and the stieam of lava to pour itself iftta
ibe sea. In the very oomplicated con^sition of a view ci
seven islands, the most recent commentators think that

VOL. II. Q

1W xtfMMOASB «AE«aiie

ttiej xoeogaise thfi^epneeotalum of ^ ^real diibdfll; ; ^m. \iim
MBall volGSimc ^rcmp of ;tfae iSoUftai)r iLipacL iakiLd^ "mrnHk
rf Sicily (we).

fttspeotive joeue pqfuxtiiig, whioh wbb o&adeito fiOBtadbate
lio d^e ^eatncid nepr^^tatiou of ik» mariex-'Vfoiks M
MbdijbtB and .Sophodes^ i^radually fextettded Hob depad^
moat of .act(^; fajr increaaioig ft dfimftod ior .tineilkiaHe
cnitaiioii of inaniinftte objected such fts btulcliiigs, ttoes,
9mA lookfi. in oimaeqaaiGe of the drnproveooeut wJnieli
Mowed Hob exienaBbm^ landscape pakting paised with the
AiedoB «sid BmBaiis tErom the theotfie into halls adaondl
mil oabmea, miMve kng snsEaoea of Wl wew eoveied^ jit
Cast «dth ffliare Aesfaiafced .sefii]8a(^^), bat aftorwiirds inUi
Mlmwive viswe of citaeB^ ^eehshonsa^ and wide paatnreB witii
^ninsig 'herds vof cal4le('^^^). These pleanng decoiadBioiii
)Mse Aot/ indeed^ invented % tiie iEU)iBsn pasbter^ Lodioay
in the AngafltaiL i^^ bat were rendered generalljr popii«-
lar^^) <by ^him^ and>euliirened i>y itbe introduoiaDn of amaU
figures (^^3). Almost at the same period^ .and even half «
(OBkuy earlier^ anumgat the Indiaiu^ in tiie bnlliant epoch
^ Tikiamadiiya^ we find landsciqse painting lefenred to as •
math pradasedtfft. In the^hanning drama of ^ Sacaoiitola/'
4he'kmg^ Dnshmanla^ has Hhe fadtuie of his Moved iibemBi
imn; Imt not sBtimfied with to ^portxaat miji, he •deosea
4kstb '^' the pauaflbr^ ^Siouid (draw Had pteoes which &ioob^
Ma moat loi^ :'--<lihe Malini met, yaSk n suidhank on
mhacYi ^fae red- flamingoes m» .atoodiBg.; » dhain of hSi^
tfAioh9estifqpiinflt.the iiuiaiaya,, and gaflaBes ocgmKog Dsa
tfie hSHs*^ 'Qxaaeioe n» iflwall aaipiaiioBa:: theyjindicibte
«b<tttf^«t3ea0(^inlibBy«B8Mti^iQf caacutipg compfaafatd'

ia Some, fiMn flie tune of tiieOiNMn^ landscape painting
e a Aipaitibe branoli of ait^ bat so far as me can judge
hj what tiie excainitions at HeooulaAeiunj Fompeij^ and
Syria, hsBft skewn ns, tbe ptcto,? ea wore often mere birdV
ejiB ifieMy nsend^Iing mapa^ and aimed rat W at tbe cepre-
flnaMioa wi vaport ioymn, villae^ and artifimal garden^
tiMHi of ntare on ber ibeedoim. That wkich the Greeks and
£he Somimfl regarded «b attcadive in s landacape, seems t»
kaase ibeen ahnoat .exeliisiyelj <^ i^reeablj habitable^ and
Mt what we call the wild and romantic* In their i»ciurei^
die Jnitatioa Slight possess as great a degree of eKactnesi
as «odd conaiflt with freqneok loacciracj in regard to pov
^eotive, aad witih a disposition ^ convientional arrangement;
ttwfir eompofliticms of the natme of arabesques, to fim
we of which the SBTiflBe Yifcnmas was mrerpe, teontained
iI^rthmicaDy Tecmimg and tastefudly arranged forms of
plants and animals; hut, to avail myself of an exjNresaou of
Otfried Midler's, " the dreamy twilight of pind whiob
speaks to us in landscape appeared to the ancients, accord*
ii^ to i^keir mode of heimg, aneapaUe of aitistie re^cesei^
tttiaon.^' (^^^

Ihe specimens of andent •l«Bdseap&>painting in the m^n^
Ber of Ludias, which hare been b]x>iight t9 light by thu
excavations at Pompeii (lately so successful), belong mo^
pKibably to -a single and v>^ limited epoch (^^^), namely,
fimn Neooto Tiiw; lor this town bad been entireljdeatroyed
hf eartitqaalGe mdaem jmsrs before the catastnopbe caused
hf^Om eeiebcaied eruption of Tesivrins

Prom Ccauftaifitim the Qtmt to the beginning of tha
middie ages, pwiting, ihou^ c^iuiaoted wjUh C!hristia»
ftdbjeets, psesenred a dose affinity to iU eaiilifir (O^ii^afiti^

fS JANDSCAPE PAINTING

An entire treasury of old memorials is found both in A^
miniatures (^^^) adorning superb manuscripts still in good
condition, and in the scarcer mosaics of the same period*
Eumohr mentions a manuscript Psalter, in the Barberina a|
Rome, containing a miniature in which ^' David is seen play-
ing on the harp, seated in a pleasant grove from amongst the.
branches of which nymphs look forth and listen : this personi-
fication marks the antique character of the whole picture/*
Prom the middle of the sixth century, when Italy was im*
poverished and in a state of utter political confusion, it wa^.
Byzantine art in the eastern empire which did most tp preserve
the lingering echoes and types of a more flourishing period*.
Memorials, such as we have spoken of, form a kind ot.
transition to the more beautiful creations of the later
middle ages: the fondness for ornamented manuscripbi
spread from Greece in the east to the countries of the west
and the norths — ^iriio the Prankish monarchy, among the
Anglo-Saxons, and into the Netherlands. It is therefore
a fact of no little importance in respect to the history of
modem art, *'that the celebrated brothers, Hubert and
John van Eyck, belonged essentially to a school of minia-
ture painters, which, since the second half of the fourteenth

century, had reached a high degree of perfection in Kaut.
ders'^("7).

It is in the historical paintings of the brothers, V^ Eyck.
that we first meet with a careful elaboration of the landscape
portion of the picture. Italy was never seen by either of
them; but the younger brother, John, had enjoyed sqi op^}.
portunity of beholding a south European vegetation, havingi
in 1428, accompanied the embassy which Philip tiifi^
0ood, Duke of Burgundy^ s^t to Lisbon, to prefer bi^

09 THE IStu centobt. '79

init to the daughter of King John I. of Portugal. We
possess^ in the Berlin Museum^ the volets of the magnificent
painting which these artists, the true founders of the great
Netherlands school of painting, executed for the cathedral
at Ghent. On. the sides which present the holy hermits
and pilgrims^ John van Eyck has adorned the landscape
with orange trees, date palms, and cypresses, which are
marked by an extreme fidelity to nature, and impart to the
other dark masses a grave and solemn character. In view-
ing this picture, we feel that the painter had himself received
the impression* of a vegetation fanned by soft and warm
breezes.

The master-works of the brothers Van Eyck belong to
the first half of the fifteenth century, when oil paintings
fhough it had only just begun to supersede fresco, had
flready attained high technical perfection. The desire to
produce an animated representation of natural forms was
now awakened; and if we would trace the gradual extension
and heightening of the feelings connected therewith, we
should recal how Antonello of Messina, a scholar of the
brothers Van Eyck,- transplanted to Venice a fondness for
landscape ; and how, even- in Florence, the pictures of the
Van Eyck school exerted a similar influence over Domenico
Ghirlandaio, and other masters (^^®). At this period, the
efforts of the painters were, for the most part, directed to a
carefol^ but almost painfully solicitous and minute imitation
of natural forms. The representation of nature first appears
conceived with freedom and with grandeur in the master- *
works of Titian, to whom, in this respect also, Giorgione
had served as an example. I had the opportunity, during
inany years, of admiring, at Paris, Titian's painting of the

'death of Peter Martyr (**^, attacted in a forest by aa Albi*
gense in the presence of another Dominican monk. The
form of the forest trees^ their fob'age^ the blue monntamoiis
distance^ the mans^ement of the light and the subdned
tone of colouring, produce an impretssion of grandeur,
solemnity, tad depth of feeling, pervading the wholb
composition ol the landscape, which & of exceeding sim-
plicity. Titian^s feeling of nature was sa Kvely, that noi
only in paintings of beautifdl women, as in the backgrotmd
rf the Venus in the Dresden Gallery, but also in those of ft
severer class, as in the portrait of the poet Pietro Aretino,
he gives to the landscape or to the sky a character corre*
sfbnding to that of the subject of the picture. In the
Bolognese school, Annibal Caracci and Domenichino re-
mained faithful to this elevation of style and character. HJ
howiever, the sixteenth century was the greatest epoch of
historic paintmg, the seventeenth is that of landscape. Al
the riches of nature became better known dkii more care-
fhHy studied, artistic feeling could extend itself over a widfer
atodmore varied range of subjects; and, at the same tiinse,
tie technical means of representation had also attained 8
Mgher degree of perfection. Meanwhile, the hindscape
paiifter^s art becoming more often and more intimately con-
nected and associated with inward tone and feeEng, the
tender Mid nuM expression of the beautrfal in nature wa^
enhanced thereby, as weH as the belief in the power of the
emotions which the external world can awaken within us.
When, conformably to the elevated aim of all art, this awaken-
ing power transforms the actual into the ideal, the enjoyment
produced i8accompaniedT)y emotion; theheartistouchedwhen**
eir«rwelookintoihe depths eftherofna*ureorof humanity (*^s

09 THB MTH' ififO ITTBT CSHtUBIES. ft

: Wer finA assembled^ in tli& ssme centmy^ Oand^ "Lam^
tdine, the idyllic painter of l%lit and of aerial dis*-
taaee; BnufsdasFs daijc fbfest maeses' and Areaten*
iag ekmda ;. Qaspftf and Nicholas Poasaiifs: heroic hmm
of trees; and tiie flithfol- and simpfy Batoral vtspm^
sentations of Ev^dingen^. Hxibbima^ aid Cajp (^^^)««
This flourishing period in^ the deTelopmsnt of ast comi^
prised' happy imitations of the ^G^ttetion; of the nertk oi
Shiiope, of soni^iem Itafy^. and of t&e Iberiaa peDEin9aIȣ
thv paintos adorned lileir landscapes witik oranges and
lefliek; wdii pines and date tnses. Ifhe date (the mAjr
memfter of the^ niiq;nadGent fisMnilj of Pahna which tiw
WBtistm had themselves seen^ exeept the ansall natim
Ikrapean species; l&c CSiamsenoipa maratinn) iras nsna%
Mpresented conventionH%> with scaly and secpentliko
ianmks((^^)> and long s»v«d! as the representatke- of trojnH
.^vegetiti0iKgeorevaIl^^r---nio0k as Pinna pinea (tho' stone
jpae): is^. hf 9. still! widel^f psevailing; ide% regaided 9s exelo*
mefy dfaHraottoiisfciB of Itiediaaivqpstation. The ootlinesofi
£9% mnnntains were yet but little studied: and natofelislH
wai kndseape psintos stili regsDded tHe sunvy sBniniil%
w£ic&rise afaovel^ gveaoi pastiness of the lower Alpacas
isAaBesnble. The parMedur chacacter» of masses of rock
fmm isBdff made objeets^ of careful imitation^ exsegt
ndiese assocdated witht the fisanxing waiier&ll^ We may hen
femsrk another instanee of the comjmhensiveness mth
v&mh the vai^d Ibniis of nator e tm mmi by a &ee. and
8QB^i<7 s^isit^- ita&ens-> who in his gnat hunting pieces hov
tefixs^ witii' inimitable troth and ammotion i£e waU
ai0veini»te ofitiBbeasts'ofthefaiwri^ has alto apprehended
fotii. feeaiksF fe&ity, tin^. eharactwtks q& tius jnanimato

8fir LAHBSCAfB ^ADTEmO,

mitbce of the earthy in the arid desert and rocky plateaa
on which the Escuxial is built (^^).

The department of art to which we are now referring
might be expected to advance in variety and exactness as:
the geographical horizon became enlarged^ and as voyages^
to distant climates facilitated the perception of the rela«;
tive beauty of different vegetable forms, and their con-.
section in groups of natural families. The discoveries:
of Oolmnbus, Yasco die Gama, and Alvarez Cabral in Gen.
tral America, Southern Asia, and Brazil, the extensive com*:
merce in spices and drugs carried on by the Spaniards, Por.
iuguese, Italians, Dutch, and Flemings, and the establish-:
ment, between 1544 and 1S68, of botanic gardens (not*
yet however furnished with reguliEff hothouses), at Pi8%,
Padua, and Bologna> did indeed afford to painters the opporta-:
nity of becoming acquainted with many remarkable exotic pro<^
dnctions even of the tropical world ; and single fruits, flowers^
and branches, were repres^ted with the utmost fidelily
and grace by John Breughel, whose celebrity had comn
menced before the close of the sixteenth century; but untir
near the middle of the seventeenth oentuiy there were no :
bsidscapes which reproduced the peculiar aspect of ttia
torrid zone from actual impressions received by the artist:
himself on the spot. The first merit of such representation
probably belongs (as I learn from Waagen), to a pamter of
the Netherlands, Franz Post of Haarlem, who accompanied
Prince Maurice of Nassau to Brazil, where that prince, wha
took great interest in tropical productions, was the Stab-
holder for Holland in tiie conquered Portuguese possessionii.
fiom 1637 to 1644. Post made many studies from natnrQ
near Gape St. Augustine^ in the bay of AH Saints^ on tha.v

CHAEACTERISTIC REPJBESSNTATTOir OF TKOIIGAL SOENEBY. 8^

flhiores of the Bio San 'Fmnoisoo, and on those of the lowet

part of the river of the Amazons (*^). Some of these wei»

aftierwards executed by himself as pictures^ and others were

etched with much spirit. There are preserved in Denmark,

(in a gallery of the fine oastle at Frederiksborg)^ some

large oil paintings of great merit belonging to the same

epoch by the painter Eckhout^ who^ in 1641^ was alsot

in Bra7.il with Prince Maurice. In these pictures, pabns^

papaws (Carica papaya), bananas^ and heliconias, are msysb

i^iaracteristically pourtrayed, as are likewise the nativ^i

inhabitants, birds of many-coloured plumage^ and small

quadrupeds.

These examples were followed by* £^w' artists of merit

until Cook^s second voyage^ of circumnavigation: what

Hodge did for the western islands of the Pacific, and our

distinguished countryman, Perdinand Bauer, for New Holland

and Yan Diemen Island, has been since done in very recent

times in a much grander style, and with a more masterly

Imnd, for tropical America, by Moritz, Bogendas, Count

darac, Perdinand Bellermann, and Edward Hildebrandt ; and

fornumy other parts of the earth by Heinrich von EattUtz^

who accompanied the Bussian admiral, Lutke, on his voyagi^
of circumnavigation(^25j^

He who with feelings aHve to the beauties of nature is
mountain, river, or forest scenery, has himself wandered in
the torrid zone, and beheld the varid;y and luxuriance of thu
v^egetation, not merely on the well-cultivated coasts, but also,
on the declivities of the snow-crowned Andes the Hima«
laya or the Neilgherries of Mysore, (» in the virgin foBesta
watered by the network of rivers between the Orinoco and
the Amazons, can fed,— and he alopd can iedii-^l^w.9lmo9l;

M £ANBSCAPB PAHHrTNA.

Hifitiite is ijie Mil which stfll vsmains to be vprnei to laodk
seape painting in tke trc^eal portions of Atbsr contu
nent^ and in tbe islbnidd of Snmatva^ Borsieo^ and l&i
Philippines; and how ail^ that this department ofi art has J9k
piod^ced^ is not to be compared to the nagidtede of the
treasuies) of which at scmie fatore day it may become' poa^
eessed. Why may we not be justified in) hoping tiiat lanck
aeape painting may heiieafter Bloom mUk new and yet na^
Inown beaaty^ when l^ghly-gifted artists shall oftener pan
flie narrow bonnds of ihet Mediterranean^ md: ediail; sma^
with the ftrst freshness of a pnre youthful' mind,. Urn living
image of the manifold beauiy and grandeur of nature in^ tbi
iiunid moimtam walleye of the tropical wteld ?

Those glorious legixms have- been hitherto visited chi^
by^ travellers to whom the want of previous^ sfftistic trains
iog, and a variety of scientific oocapatfons^ alibwed bat
Mttle opportunity oC attaining pienfieetion) im hadsc&iitt
painting. But fsw^ among thent were' aUe;. in addkna
to the botaniGat inta»st essited bf indnddnal ibrnus^ of
flowem and leaves^ to seize tiie general] chawwdwAitic; impsss^
sion^ of the tropical z(»ie« The artists who* aBeon^pamMl
glBoat expeditious snpported^vat tbe expense? of ther stata
which sent them forth^ were too often chosen ae it were: By
accidisnty and weie thus found to be less prepared thaU' the
oecadian demanded; and perhaps* the end of the; voyage wa*
^pproaofaiagi. w&en^ even^ the most talenixsd aoBong themi
flfller a long enjoynient> of the speetade* of the gseat scenes el
H»tuze^ and nMW^ attempts at imitatibn^ were jnst Beginning
to master a oertaini de^vee of technicai dull. Moreover,, m
wpages of cinmninavigation^ artists are seldom eonduistod
iuko the true finest r^iDttB>. to* the upper p(»tii!H» of t]b

chahacieeistic BSFsasaEsruLTSON oftbopical scenebTc 91

iBMJaae of gceU rivers^ or to the* stvmmits of the Imounlaa
chains of the interior. It is only by coloured sketches takct
to the s|K»t^. thai Hut avtist; inspired by the eoliten^kktioii of
tiiese distant scenes^ can hope to leprodaee theiv ehaiti£t«f
ift paautings esecuted after his retoxn. He unQ be abk
1S[» io' so the move perfectly,, if he has also* aeensiulaitdi
% kjfge MUAb^ of separate studlies of topa of trees, 'of
Vi^^ehes doihed with leaves^ atilomed with blossoms, or ladtit
^itk &uit, of fallen trunks of trees oviergrowm with pothies
asid orchideagy. of portions of rocka and river banks,, as wefl
asi of tbe anxface of the ground in the forest,, all drawn; et
fainted directly from nature: An ab^indance of studiiea e£
tfyfi kind, in which the outlined are well and sharply marked
vSl furnish hiisi with materials enabling him> on his rei»
taivn>. to dispense with the misleadiaig assistance afforded by
plants grown in the confineix^nt of hot-houses, m by what
tae^ called botanical drawing?..

Great events in the world's history, the independence «#

tiaue Spanish aand Portugjuese Americas, and the ^^pread and

laereage o£ in-telleetual cultivatioa in India, TSew HoQan^

the Sandwich Mand^, and the sontiiem colonies of A£rie%

eanio/^ £ail to procure,, not &nly foir meteorology and othcv

brainiehes o£ naitural knowledge, but also for landsca(pe paifit^

ing^a new and grander development which might not hamv^

been attainable without these local diPciHnstazicesv In Sealih

AiXkeriea populous citie» are situated lS,000i feet aftove tiie

]0^ &S the sea. In descending from' them, to^ tiie ^aitt%

all dimatie gradations of the forms of plants' ase offeced- i0

tile ejfe^ What may we not expeet from the pictnivesqaie

' stud} of na4itLre in such scenes> if after the teiiniBlatiQiir of

' #ivil discord and the edtabUshmt^ of feee inaldtatiQiMy

86 LANDSCAPE FAIimKO*

artistic feeling shall at length awaken in those elevated"
highlands I

All that belongs to the expression of human emotion and
to the beauty of the human form, has attained perhaps its^
highest perfection in the northern temperate zone, under the
skies of Greece and Italy. By the combined exercise of
imitative art and of creative imagination, the artist has de-
rived the types of historical painting, at once from the depths'
of his own mind, and from the contemplation of other beings'
of his own race. Landscape painting, though no merely'
imitative art, has, it may be said, a more material sub-'
stratum and a more terrestrial domain : it requires a greater
mass and variety of direct impressions, which the mind
must receive witliin itself, fertilize by its own powers^
1^ reproduce visibly as a free work of art. Heroic land-
scape painting must be a result at once of a deep and
comprehensive reception of the visible spectacle of external
nature, and of this inward process of the mind.

Nature, in every region of the earth, is indeed a reflex of
the whole ; the forms of organised being are repeated every-
where in &esh combinations ; even in the ipy north, herbs
covering the earth, large alpine blossoms, and a serene
azure sky, cheer a portion of the year. Hitherto, land-
scape painting has pursued amongst .us her pleasing
task, familiar only with the simpler forms of our native
floras, but not therefore without depth of feeling or with-
out the treasures of creative imagination. Even in this
narrower field, highly-gifted painters, the Caracd, Caspar
j^oussin, Claude Lorraine, and Ruysdael, have, with magis
power, by the selection of ibrms of trees and by effects of
light, found scope wherein to call forth some of the most'

CHAlUOTBKiaTIC BBPSESENTATZON OF TEOPICAL SClSirERT. 87

varied and beautiful productions of creative art. The fanM
pt these master works can never be impaired hj those which
I venture to hope for hereafter, and to which I could not
but point, in order to recal the ancient and deeply-seated
bond which unites natural knowledge with poetry anj
with artistic feeling, for we must ever distinguish, ill
landscape painting as in every other branch of art, be*
tween productions derived from direct observation, and
those which spring from the depths of inward feeling
and from the power of the idealising mind. The great
and beautiful works which owe their origin to this crea-
tive power of the mind applied to landscape-paintings
belong to the poetry of nature, and like man himself and
the imagination with which he is gifted, are not rivetted to
the soU or confined to any single region. I allude here
more particularly to the gradation in the forms of trees from
Buysdael and Everdingen, through Claude Lorraine to Poussiii
and Annibal Garacci. In the great masters of the art we
perceive no trace of local limitation ; but an enlargement of
the visible horizon, and an increased acquaintance with the
nobler and grander forms of nature, and with the luxuriant
folness of life in the tropical world, offer the advantage not
only of enriching the material substratum of landscape paints
ing, but also of affording a more lively stimulus to less gifted
lurtists, and of thus heightening their power of production^

I would here be permitted to recal some considerations
which I communicated to the public nearly half a century
ago, and which have an intimate connection with the subject
which is at present under notice; they were contained in *
memoir which has been but little read, entitled '^Ideen si|

1

'Fbjsiognoiiiik c[er<jew&ch8e''{^2^) ^deas towards aflq^
Ofi^BOHqr idf pknts). When lising from loeal pbenomeiift
M embrace all nature in one view, we pereem the ineBeasft
ipf warmilih 6om the pcfles to the e()iiator aocompanied % At
gEadual advanoe of organie irigoar and Ittxurianoe. iEeoim
SloriJieim Europe to the beautifal ooasts of tiie Mediteanranea*
this ad^anoe is even less than from the Ihenran Beiaiisn^
Bonthem Italy and Greece^ to the trcq^c sone. The easpet
ftf ifloweiss and of verdore spread over our hare and naked
€Krth is nmeqiuiHy woven ; iMcker where the sun rises hi^
in a sky either of a deep azure purity or veiled wiHi lighifc
semi-transparent clouds ; and thinn^ towards tiie gloomy
norths where retuming irosts are often fatal to the opening
kids ^ q>ring^ or destroy the ripening fruits of autumn,
if an the frigid zone the bark of trees is covered wiQi Uehens
or with mosses, in the sione of palms and finely-feathered
fidioveseent ferns, the trunks of Anacardias and •of giganltie
speoiea of lions are ^ilivened by Gymbidium and :diie fragrant
vsnffla. 3Sw fresh green of the Draoontias^ and the deep^eot
kaRres <of the Pathos, oontrast with iiie many-eoloaied floweni
i£ihe(h(Mie9Si. Climbing Banhinias^PassiSoras, and yello#
flowering Banisterias, entwining the iftems of the ferest treeSi
spiread far and "vide, and rise hi^ m air ; deKeate fiowen
ufold theaoascdves from the tocAb of the Theobromas, asid
from the thidk and rough bail: -df tbe Creseentias and <(3ie
Gvstavia. Zn the midst of tins lAmndanoe of leaves and
Uossoms, this luxuriant growth and provision -of eHmteng
|ho^, tiie nadmralist oftm &idB % diflknidt to ^discover to
which fltana different flowers aad leaves bdong; nay, a ma^
trie adosued with Fai^mas, SigDomas, and DendrdbiiKm;

pgemTkU a amass M vegetaticm<and a v^iefy oi plants whxeh^
if (detediei &oid each otibsr^ (vroHld^cover.a jOoiuBdeKable spaoe
QfrgroHBd.

Sut to.^aidilwiie'ofike earth aseaUattod pecuUar beauties }
t0 ifate trc^^^ variety aiid gzaad^ttr ki the lotms of vegeta-
tjon^ to the moriby )the ^aspect of Hb iBeadows and green
fiwtaresy ^aud >the pesiodic koAg-deaired reamatfimng of natiue
ajt ^e fimt kreath 'of tbe amid air lOf qpsuig. ibi in tbe
MusacesB we have the greatest expansicn^ ao in the Gasuarinse
and nee& ^tliees mt have the •gseateat joontraotion of the
leafy vesaels. iiks, Tiuuai^ and C^rpreesee^, oosstitute a
MrttienL fema wjiioh is .esitremdy d»re in the low grounds cf
Uie 4i!&pics* Vhesr eveir-feedi vei&duaB icheers the wint»
bsidaeape; «nd tells io tiie idblal»nts of the north, that
mhm mi9w and ioe oover <the ^eadih, the inwscrd life of plantsj^
iftedSie JE^nmediean &x, is never esctinet«pon ov planet

iEach aoAie ot^v^itMksx, besides its peculiar beauties, haa
fd»i» difitiart dha&actea*, eaHing knsOi in us a different order
^ im^mmmm. IFo jteeal Itetse oaaisf {ossjoob of our native
x&iratefi, (wh$» dow not f eel ihuB^elf 4KGbren% aifeoted in the
4mk shadeof >^ heefAi or oa hills oroi^ed with scattered
^bsu find on ^. open pasture wbece the wind iiifitlesm tbe
taombling loiliage of the biechf M in different organie
JMngs we xacognise a ^istiuGt phpiognomy^ and as de^
saec^plii^e botanjjr and jsoolo^, iniiie »cire restricted sense oi
ihe .Serins, inqa^ «a analysia ^feenliwdlm in the forms of
yihmts and meBtaks aoii ibore alao a ees^taiii natorat p%^
adegnemy bdonging exekiskely ite fmh ^region «f the eartik.
JEbe adoa ndndi tiae artist indicates by the'etpaesabBa "Sms»
flHteie,^' ^'fiaifiaBdky^^ J^/£^ peseepttontf

lacaLduuffialac. Woi» mmt of tlie «]^« itba Imaa wi ^

9& LANDSCAPE PAINTING,

clouds, the haze resting on the distance, the succulency of
the herbage, the brightness of the foliage, the outline of the
mountains, are elements which determine the general im»
pression. It is the province of landscape painting to ap-
prehend these, and to reproduce them visibly. The artist ii
permitted to analyse the groups, and the enchantment of
nature is resolved under his hands, like the written workd
of men (if I may venture on the figurative expression), int0
a few simple characters.

Even in the present imperfect state of our pictorial repro*
mentations of landscape, the eugravings which accompany,
and too often only disfigure, our books of travels, have yet
contributed not a little to our knowledge of the aspect of
distant zones, to the predilection for extensive voyages, and
to the more active study of nature. The improvement in
landscape painting on a scale of large dimensions (as in
decorative or scene painting, in panoramas, dioramas, and
neoramas), has of late years increased both the generalily
-and the strength of these impressions. The class of repie*
mentations which Vitruvius and the Egyptian Julius Pollux
satirically described as ^' rural satyric decorations,^' which,
in the middle of the sixteenth century, were, by Serlio's
plan of sliding scenes, made to increase theatrical illusion,
may now, in Barker's panoramas, by the aid of Prevost
and Daguerre, be converted into a kind of substitute for
wanderings in various climates. More may be efiected
in this way than by any kind of scene painting; and this
partly because in a panorama, the spectator, enclosed as in a
magic circle and withdrawn from all disturbing realiti^
may the more readily imagme himself surrounded on all sides
by nature in another clime. Impressions are thus produced

PANOBAKAS. 91

Wiich in some cases ndngle years afterwords by a wonjkrfal
fllusion with the remembrances of natural scenes actually
beheld. Hitherto^ panoramas^ which are only effective when
they are of large diameter, have been applied chiefly to
idewft of cities and of inhabited districts, rather than to
ftcenes in which nature appears decked with her own wild
luxuriance and beauty. Enchanting effects might be ob«
toined by means of characteristic studies sketched on the rug-
ged mountain declivities of the Himalaya and the Cordilleras,
or in the reeesses of the river country of India and South
America; and still more so if these sketches were aided by
photographs, which cannot indeed render the leafy canopy, but
Would give the most perfect representation possible of the form
of the gianii trunks, and of the mode of ramification characte-
ristic of the different kinds of trees. All the methods to
which I have h^!e alluded are fitted to enhance the love of
the study of nature; it appears, indeed, to me, that if large
panoramic buildings, containing a succession of such land-
scapes, belonging to different geographical latitudes and dif-
fer^t zones of elevation, were erected in our cities, and, like
our museums aod galleries of paintings, thrown freely open
to the people, it would be a powerful means of rendering
the snblime grandeur of the creation more widely known and
felt. The comprehension of a natural whole, the feeling of
the unity and harmony of the Cosmos, will become at once
more vivid and more generally diffused, with the multipli-
cation of all modes of bringing the phsenomena of nature
'generally before the contemplation of the eye and of the mind.

VQiU jU.

92

IirCITBMEl«TS TO THE STUBT OF NATURE.

HI. — Cultivation of tropical plants — Assemblage of contrasted
forms — Impression of the general characteristic phjsiog*
nomy of the vegetation produced by such meaiiB.

The effect of landscape painting, notwithstanding the
multiplication of its productions by engravings and by the
modem improvements of lithography, is still both more
limited and less vivid, than the stimulus which results jBrom
the impression produced on minds aUve to natural beauty
by the direct view of groups of exotic plants in hot-houses
or in the open air. I have already appealed on this subject
to my own youthful experience, when the sight of a colossal
dragon tree and of a fan palm in an old tower of the botanic
garden at Berlin, implanted in my breast the &st germ of
an irrepressible longing for distant travel. Those who are
able to reascend in memory to that which may have given
the first impulse to their entire course of Ufe, will recognise
this powerful influence of impressions received through the
senses.

I would here distinguish between those plantations which
are best suited to afford us the picturesque impression of
the forms of plants, and those in which they are arranged
as auxiUaries to botanical studies ; between groups distin-
guished for their grandeur and mass, as clumps of Bananas
and Heliconias alternating with Corypha Palms, Araucarias

OULTUKB 07 CHAXAOKBRI8TI0 EXOTIO PLANTS. 98

and Mimosas^ and moss-covered trunks firom which shoot
Dracontias> Ferns with their delicate foliage^andOrchideiB rich
in varied and beantifal flowers, on the one hand; and on the
other, a number of separate low-growing plants classed and
arranged in rows for the purpose of conveying instructioii
in descriptive and systematic botany. In the first case, our
consideration is drawn rather to the luxuriant development
of v^tation in Gecropias, Oarolinias, and light-feathered
Bamboos; to the picturesque apposition of grand and noble
forms, such as adorn the banks of the upper Orinoco and the
totest shotes of the Amazons, and of the Huallaga described
with such truth to nature by Martins and Edward Poppig;
to impressions which fill the mind with longing for those
lands where the current of life flows in a richer stream, and
of whose glorious beauty a faint but still pleasing image is
now presented to us in our hot-houses, which formerly were
mere hospitals for languishing unhealthy phints.

Landscape painting is, indeed, able to present a richer
and more complete picture of nature than can be obtained
by the most skilful grouping of cultivated plants. Almost
nnlimited in regard to space, it can pursue the margin of
the forest until it becomes indistinct from the effect of
aerial perspective; it can pour the mountain torrent from
crs^ to cn^, and spread the deep azure of the tropic sky
above the light tops of the palms, or the undulating
savannah which bounds the horizon. The illumination and
colouring, which between the tropics are shed over aU
terrestrial objects by the light of the thinly veQed or perfectly
pure heaven, give to landscape painting, when the pencil
succeeds in imitating this mild effect of light, a peculiar and
mysterious power, A deep perception of tlie essence of the

94 CULTUEE OF CHAKACl'EEISTIC EXOTIC PLAINTS.

Greek tragedy led my brother to compare the charm of the
chorus in its effect with the sky in the landscape, {^^)

The mxdtiplied means which painting can command for
stimulating the fancy^ and concentrating in a small space the
grandest phsenomena of sea and land, are indeed denied to
our plantations in gardens or in hot-houi^es; but the
inferiority in general impression is compensated by the
mastery which the reality every where exerts over the senses.
When in the palm house of Loddiges, or in that of the
Pfauen-insd near Potsdam (a monument of the simple
feeling for nature of our noble departed monarch), we look
down from the high gallery, during a bright noonday
sunshine, upon the abundance of reed-like and arborescent
palms, a complete illusion in respect to the locality in which
we are placed is momentarily produced; we seem to be
actually in the climate of the tropics, looking down from the
summit of a hill upon a small thicket of palms. The aspect
of the deep blue sky, and the impression of a greater
intensity of light, are indeed wanting, but still the illusion is
greater, and the imagination more vividly active, than from
the most perfect painting ; we associate with each vegetable
tonn. the wonders of a distant land; we hear the rustling of
the fan-like leaves, and see the changing play of light, as,
gently moved by slight currents of air, the waviag tops of
the palms come into contact with each other. So great is
the charm which reality can give. The recollection of the
needful degree of artificial care bestowed no doubt returns to
disturb the impression ; for a perfectly flourishing condition,
and a state of freedom, are inseparable in the realm bf nature
as elsewhere ; and in the eyes of the earnest and travelled
botanist, the dried specimen in an herbarium, if actually

PABKS AND 0ABDEK8. 05

gathered on the Cordilleras of South America, or the plains
of India^ often has a greater value than the living plant in an
European hot-house: cultivation effaces somewhat of the
origmal natural character ; the constramt which it produces
disturbs the free organic development of the separate parts.
The physiognomic character of plants^ and their assemblage
in happily contrasted groups, is not only an incitement to
the study of nature, and itself one of the objects of that study^
but attention to the physiognomy of plants is also of great
importance in landscape gardening — in the art of composing
& garden landscape. I will resist the temptation to expatiate
in this closely adjoining field of disquisition, and content
myself with bringing to the recollection of my readers that,
as in the earlier portion of the present volume, I found
occasion to notice the more frequent manifestation of a deep
feeling for nature among the Semitic, Indian, and Iraunian
nations, so also the earliest ornamental parks mentioned in
history belonged to middle and southern Asia. The gardens
of Semiramis, at the foot of the Bagistanos mountain {^^),
are described by Diodorus, and the fame of them induced
Alexander to turn aside from the direct road, in order to
visit them during his march from Chelone to the Nysaic
hoTse pastures. The parks of the Persian kings were adorned
with cypresses, of which the form, resembhng obelisks,,
recalled the shape of flames of fire, and which, after the
appearance of Zerdusht (Zoroaster), were first planted by
Gushtasp around the sanctuary of the fire temple. It was,
perhaps, thus that the form of the tree led to the fiction of
the Paradisaical origin of cypresses {^^). The Asiatic
terrestrial paradises {Tapahnroi), were earljT celebrated in
more western countries (^^i ; and tiie worship of trees even

CULTUBE OF OHASAOTESBISTIG EXOTIC PLANTS.

goes back among the Iraunians to the rules of Hom^ called,
in the Zend-Avesta, the promulgator of the old law. We
know from Herodotus the delight which Xerxes took in the
great plane tree in Lydia, on which he bestowed golden
ornaments, and appointed for it a sentinel in the person of
one of the " immortal ten thousand" (^^^). The early
veneration of trees was associated, by the moist and refresh-
ing canopy of foliage, mih that of sacred fountains. In
similar connection with the early worship of nature, were,
amongst the Hellenic nations, the fame of the great pahn
tree of Ddos, and of an aged plane tree in Arcadia. The
Buddhists of Ceylon venerate the colossal Indian fig tree
(the Banyan) of Anurahdepura, supposed to have sprung
from the branches of the original tree under which Buddha,
while inhabiting the ancient Magadha, was absorbed in
beatification, or " idf-ertinction" (nirwana) {^^^). As
single trees thus became objects of veneration from the
beauty of their form, so did also groups of trees, under the
name of ^' groves of the gods." Pausanias is full of the
praise of a grove belonging to the temple of Apollo, at
Grynion, in Molia (^^s) . ^mi the grove of Golond is cele-
brated in the renowned chorus of Sophocles.

The love of nature which showed itself in the selection
and care of these venerated objects of the vegetable kingdom,
manifested itself with yet greater vivacity, and in a more
varied manner, in the horticultural arrangements of the early
civilised nations of Eastern Asia. In the most distant pari|.
of the old continent, the Chinese gardens appear to have
approached most nearly to what we now call English parks.
Under the victorious dynasiy of Han, gardens of this class
were extended over circuits of so many miles that agriculture

VAXKB AMD GABDBKB. 9T

wae aflfeetecl, (<^) and the people were excited to revolts
" What is it/' aajs an ancient Chinese writer, laeu-tschen^
that we seek in the pleasures of a garden? It has always
been agreed that these plantations should make men amends
ibr living at a distance from what wonld be their more con>
genial and agreeable dwelling-place, in the midst of nature
free, and unconstrained. The art of laying out gardens
consists, therefore, in combining cheerfulness of prospect,
luxuriance of growth, shade, retirement, and repose, so
that the rural aspect may produce an illusion* Yarie^
which is a chief merit in the natural landscape, must be
sought by the choice of ground with alternation of hill and
dale, flowing streams, and lakes covered with aquatic plants.
Symmetry is wearisome; and a garden where every thing be-
trays constraint and art becomes tedious and distasteful/' {^^
A description which Sir George Staunton has given us of
the great imperial garden of Zhe-hol, (^^) north of the
Chinese wall, corresponds with these precepts of Lieu-tscheu
—precepts to which our ingenious contemporary, who formed
the beautiful park of Moscow, (^^^j would not refuse his
approbation*

llie great descriptive poem, composed in the middle of
the last century by the Emperor Kien-long to celebrate the
former Mantchou imperial residence, Moukden, and the
graves of lus ancestors, is also expressive of the most
thorough love of nature sparingly embellished by art. The
royal poet knows how to blend the cheerful images of
&esh and rich meadows, wood-crowned hills, and peaceful
dwellings of men, all described in a yery graphic man*
ner, with the graver image of the tombs of his fore-
fathers. The offerings which he brings to his deceased

OULTUBE OP OHASACTEBISnO XXOTIO ^LAIHS.

•ncestors, accordii^ to the rites prescribed by Confocitw,
and the pious remembrance of departed monarchs and
warriors^ are the more special objects of this remarkable
poem. A bng enumeration of the wild plants^ and of the
animals which enhven the district^ is tedious, as didactic
poetry al\(ays is; but the weaving together the impression
received from the visible landscape (which appears only
as the background of the picture,) with the more ele-
vated objects taken from the world of ideas, with the
fulfibnent of religious rites, and with allusions to great
historical events, gives a peculiar character to the whole
oompo^tion. The consecration of mountains, so deeply
footed among the Chinese, leads the author to introduce
careful descriptions of the aspect of inanimate nature, to
which the Greeks and the Somans shewed themselves, so little
aUve. The forms of the several trees, their mode of growth,
the direction of the branches, and the shape of the leaves^
are dwelt on with marked predilection, (^^sj

As I do not participate in that distaste to Chinese
literature which is too slowly disappearing amongst us,
and as I have dwelt, perhaps, at too much length on the
work of a cotemporary of Frederic the Great, it is the more
incumbent on me to go back to a period seven centuries and
a half earlier, for the purpose of recalling the poem of '^ The
Garden,^' by See-ma-kuang, a celebrated statesman. It is
true that the pleasure grounds described in this poem are^
in part, overcrowded with numerous buildings, as was the
case in the ancient villas of Italy; but the minister also
describes a hermitage, situated between rocks, and sur-
rounded by lofty fir trees. He praises the extensive prospect
over the wide river Kiang, with its many vesseb : ^' here hft

TASKS AND QASDESB. 99

can Teceire laa friends, listen to tliedr venea, aod lecate to
tbem his own." ('^bj See-ma-knang wrote in the year 1086^
when, in Germany, poetry, in Uie hands of a rode clergy,
did not even speak tha langoage cf tlie conatry. At that
period, and, peihiqra, five centimes earlier, tbe inhabitants
of China, Transgaogetic India, and Japan, were already
acquainted with a great variety of forma of plants. Th«
intimate connection maintained between the Buddbistio
monasteries was not without influence in this respect.
Temples, cloisters, and borying-places were surrounded with
gardens, adorned with exotic tees, and with a carpet of
flowers of many forms and colours. The plants of India
were early conveyed to China, Corea, and Nipon. Siebold,
whose writings afford a comprehensive view of all that
relates to Japan, was the first to call attention to the cause
of the intermixtuie of the floras of widely'Separated Bud-
dhistic countries. ('*")

The rich and increasing variety of characteristic vegetable
forms which, in the present age, are ofiered both to scientifio
observation and to landscape painting, cannot bat sfTord a
lively incentive to trace out the sources which have prepared
for us this more extended knowledge and this increased
enjoyment. The enumeration of these sources is reserved
for the succeeding section of my work, i. e. the history of
the contemplation of the universe. In the section which I
am now closing, I have sought to depict those incentives,
due to. the influence excited on flie intellectual ad
and the feelings of men by the reflected image of the ext
world, which, in the progress of modem civilisation,
tended so materially to encourage and vivify the stai
nature. Notwithstanding a certain degree of arbitmy

100 CULTUBB OF SXOTIC VLAlTrS*

dom in the development of the several parts^ primiBiy and
ieep-seated laws of organic life bind all animal and vegetable
forms to firmly established and ever recninng types^ and de-
termine in each zone the particnlar character impressed on it,
or the physiognomy of nature, I regard it as one of the
fairest froits of general European civilisation^ that it is now
ahnost every where possible for men to obtain^ — by the
cnltivation of exotic plants, by the charm of landscape
pamting, and by the power of the inspiration of language,—^
some part, at least, of that enjoyment of nature, whidif when
pursued by long and dangerous journeys through the interior
of oontinentak is afforded by her immediate contemplatioih

101

HISTOBT Olf THE PHTSICAL COHTEMPIATION OF THB

UmVESSE.

Principal epochs of the progressive development and extension of tl&9
idea of the Closmod as an oiganio whole.

The history of the physical contemplation of the uniyerse is
the history of the recognition of nature as a whole ; it is the
recital of the endeavours of man to conceive and compre*
hend the concurrent action of natural forces on the earth
and in the regions of space: it accordingly marks the
epochs of progress in the generalisation of physical views*
It is that part of the history of our world of thought which
relates to objects perceived by the senses^ to the form of
conglomerated matter^ and to the forces by which it is per-
vaded.

«

In the first portion of this work^ in the section on the
limitation and scientific treatment of a physical description
of the universe^ I have endeavoured to point out the true
relation which the separate branches of natural knowledge
bear to that description^ and to shew that the science of the
Cosmos derives from those separate studies only the mate-
rials for its^cientific foundation. (^^^) The history of the
recognition or knowledge of the universe as a whole, — of
which history I now propose to present the leading ideas^
and which, for the sake of brevity, I here term sometimes
the '^ history of the Cosmos/' and sometimes the '^history

102 HISTOEY OF THE PHYSICAL

of the physical contemplation of the universe/' — ^must not,
therefore, be confounded with the " history of the natural
sciences/' as it is given in several of our best elementary
books of physics, or in those of the morphology of plants
and animals. In order to afford some preliminary notion of
the import and bearing of what is to be here contemplated
as historic periods or epochs, it may be useful to give
instances, shewing on the one hand what is to be treated
of, and on the other hand what is to be excluded. The
discoveries of the compound microscope, of the telescope,
and of colored polarisation, belong to the history of the
science of the Cosmos, — ^because they have supplied the
means of discovering what is common to all organic bodies,
of penetrating into the most distant regions of space, and
of distinguishing borrowed or reflected light ifrom that of
self-luminous bodies, «. e. of determining whether the light
of the sun proceeds from a solid mass, or from a gaseous
envelope; whilst, on the other hand, the relation of the experi-
ments which, from the time of Huygens, have gradually led
to Arago's discovery of colored polarisation, is reserved for
the history of optics. In like mamier'the development of the
pdnciples according to which the varied mass of vegetable
forms may be arranged in families is left to the histoiy of
phytognosy or botany ; whilst what relates to the geography
of plants, or to the insight into the local and climatic distri-
bution of vegetation over the whole globe, on the dry land
and in the algseferous basin of the sea, consi^tes an im-
portant section in the history of the physical contemplation
of the universe.

The thoughtful consideration of that which has conducted
men to their present degree of insight into nature as a

COMTBUFXATION 07 THE XJimrEBaB. lOS

whole^ is assuredly far firom embracing the entire history of
]pinan cultivation. Even were we to regard the insight
into the connection of the animating forces of the material
universe as the noblest fruit of that cultivation, as tending
towards the loffciest pinnacle which the intelligence of man
can attain, yet that which we here propose to indicate would
stQl be but one portion of a history, of which the scope
should comprehend all that marks the progress of different
nations in all directions in which moral, social, or mental
improvement can be attained. Bestricted to physical asso-
ciations, we necessarily study but one part of the history of
human knowledge ; we fix our eyes especially on the relation
which progressive attainment has borne to the whole which
nature presents to us ; we dwell less on the extension of the
separate branches of knowledge, than on what different ages
have famished either of results capable of general applica-
tion, or of powerful material aids contributing to the more
exact observation of nature.

We must first of all distinguish carefally and accurately
between early presage and actual knowledge. With in-
creasing cultivation much passes from the former into the
latter by a transition which obscures the history of dis-
coveries. Presage or conjecture is often unconsciously
guided by a meditative combination of what previous investi-
gation has made known, and is raised by it as by an inspir-
ing power. Among the Indians, the Greeks, and in the
middle ages, much was enunciated concerning the connec-
tion of natuilfl phffinomeua, which, at first unproved, and
mingled with the most unfounded speculations, has at a
later perio j been confirmed by sure experience, and has
flinoe becoma matter of scientific knowledge. The preseii-

104 mSTORT OF THB PHYSICAL

tient imagination^ the all-animating activity of spirit^ which
lived in Plato^ in Golombus^ and in Kepler, must not ]p
reproached as if it had effected nothing in the domain of
science, or as if it tended necessarily to withdraw the mind
from the investigation of the actual

Since we have defined the subject before us as the history

Gurrence in the action of the forces of the universe, our method
of proceeding must be to select for our notice those subjects
by which the idea of the unity of pheenomena has been gradu-
ally developed. We distinguish in this respect, 1°, the efforts
of reason to attain the knowledge of natural laws by athought-
fill consideration of natural phsenomena; 2^, events in the
world's history which have suddenly enlarged the horizon
of observation ; 3°, the discovery of new means of perception
through the senses, whereby observations are varied, multi-
plied, and rendered more accurate, and men are brought
into closer communication both with tar^trial objects and
with the most distant regions of space. This threefold
view must be our guide in determining the principal epochs
of the history of the science of the Cosmos. For the sake
of illustrating what has been said, we will again adduce
particular instances, characteristic of the different means by
which men have gradually arrived at the intellectual posses-
sion of a large part of the material universe. I take, there-
fore, examples of ''the enlarged knowledge of nature,''— of
''great events," — and of the "invention or discovery of
new organs."

The "knowledge of nature" in the oldest Greek physics,
was derived more from inward contemplation and from the
depths of the mind, than from the observation of phseno-

OONTKUFLATION OV THE tTinVSBSB, 105

mena. The nataral philosophy of the lonio physiologists
was directed to the primary principle of origin or prodnction,
or to the changes of fonn^ of a single elementaiy snbstance.
In the mathematical symbolism of the Pythagoreans, in their
considerations on number and form, there is disclosed, on
the other hand, a philosophy of measure and of harmony.
This Doric Italic school, in seeking every where for nnmeri-
cal elements, from a certain predilection for the relations of
number which it recognized in space and in time, may be
said to have laid the foundation, in this direction, of the
future progress of our modem experimental sciences. The
history of the contemplation of the universe, in my view,
records not so much the often recurring fluctuations between
truth and error, as the principal epochs of the gradual ap-
proximation towards a just view of terrestrial forces and
of the planetary system. It shews that the Pythagoreans,
according to the report of Philolaus of Groton, taught the
progressive movement of the non-rotating earth, or its
revolution around the hearth or focus of the universe (the
central fire, Hestia) ; wbereas Plato and Aristotle imagined
the earth to have neither a rotatory nor a- progressive move-
ment, but to rest immoveably in the center. Hicetas of
Syracuse (who Is at least more anciait than Theophrastus),
HeracUdes Ponticus, and Ecphantus, were acquainted with
the rotation of the earth around its axis; but Aristarchus of
Samos, and especially Seleucus the Babylonian who lived a
century and a half after Alexander, were the first who knew
that the earth not only rotates, but also at the same time re*
volves around the sun as the center of the whole planetary sys-
tem. And if, in the middle ages, fanaticism, and the still pre-
vailing influence of the Ptolemaic system, combined to bring

106 HISTOUT OF THE PHYSICAL

back a belief in the immobility of the earthy and if, in the
view of the Alexandrian Cosmaslndicopleustes, its form even
became again that of the disk of Thales,— on the other hand it
should be remembered that a German Cardinal^ Nicolaus de
Guss^ almost a century before Gopemicos^ had the mental free-
dom and the courage to reascribe to our planet both a rotation
round its axis, and a progressive movement round the sun.
AfterCopernicus,TychoBrahe's doctrine wasastep backwards;
but the retrogression was of short duration. When once a
considerable mass of exact observations had been assembled,
to which Tycho himseK largely contributed, the true view of
the structure of the universe could not be long repressed.
We have here shewn how the period of fluctuations is espe-
cially one of presentiment and speculation.

Next to the " enlarged knowledge of nature/^ resulting afc
once from observation and from ideal combinations, I have
proposed tonotice '^great events,'^ by which the horizon of the
contemplation of the universe has been extended. To this class
belong the migration of nations, remarkable voyages, and mili-
tary expeditions ; these have been instrumental in makirg
known the natural features of the earth^s surface, such as
the form of continents, the direction of mountain chains,
Uie relative elevation of high plateaus, and sometimes
by the wide range over which they extended, have even
provided materials for the establishment of general laws of
nature. In these historical considerations, it wiQ not be
necessary to present a connected tissue of events; it will be
sufl&cient to notice those occurrences which, at each period,
have exerted a decisive influence on the intellectual efibrts
of man, and on a more enlarged and extended view of the
unirerse. Such have been, to the nations settled round the

baflin of tbe Mediterranean^ ike fiAv%ation of Cotens of Samot
bejond the Pillars of Hexcuks; the expedition oi.Alexan-
cfer to Western India; the empire of the world obtained by
the Eonums; the spread of Arabian cultivation; and the
discovery of the new Continent. I propose not so much to
dwell on the narration of occurrences^ as to indicate the
influence which evei^ts^ — such as voyages of discovery, the
predominance and extension of a highly polished language
possessing a rich literature, or the suddenly acquired
knowledge of the Indo-Aflican monsoons, — ^have exerted in
developing the idea of the Cosmos.

Having among these heterogeneous examples alluded thus
earl^ to the influence of languages, I would here call atten-
tion generally to their immeasurable importance in two
very different ways. Single languages widely extended
operate. as means of communication between distant na-
tions ; - a pluralily of languages, by their mtercompari-
son, and by the insight obtained into their internal^ or-
ganisation and their degrees of relationship, opexate on
the deep^ study of ihe history d the human race. The
Gredc language; and tbe national life of the Greeks so inti-
mately connected with their language, have exercised a power-
fol influence on all the nations with whom they have been
brought in contact, (^^a) The Greek tongue appears in the
interior of Asia^ through the influence of the Bactrian em-
pire, as the conveys, of knowledge which more than a
thousand years afterwards the Arabs brought back to the
extreme west of Europe, mingled with additions from Indian
sources. The ancient Indian and Malayan languages pro-
moted trade and national intercourse in the south-eastern
Asiatic islands, and in Madagascar ; and it is even probable

VOL. II. I

108 fllSTOBT OF THB IPHYSICAL

that tlirough intelligeiice from the Indian trading spCationd
of the Banians^ they had a large share in occasioning the
bold enterprise of Vasco de Gama. The wide predomi-
nance of particular languages^ though unfortunately it pre*
pared the early destruction of the displaced idioms, has
contributed beneficially to bring mankind together; re-
sembhng in this, one of the effects which have foUowed the
extension of Christianity, and which has also been produced
by the spread of Buddhism.

Languages, compared with each other, and considered as
objects of the natural history of the human mind, being di-
vided into families according to the analogy of their internal
structure, have become, (and it is one of the most bnlliant
results of modem studies in the last sixiy or seventy
years), a rich source of historical knowledge. Products of
the mental power, they lead ns back, by the fundamental
characters of their organisation, to an obscure and other-
wise unknown distance. The comparative study of Ian-
guages shews how races of nations, now separated by wide
regions, are related to each other, and have proceeded from
a common seat ; it discloses the direction and the path of
ancient migrations ; in tracing ont epochs of development,
it recognises in the more or less altered characters of the
language, in the permanency of certain forms, or in the
already advanced departure £rom them, which portion of the
race has preserved a language nearest to that of their former
common dwelling-place. The long chain of the Indo*
Germanic languages, from the Ganges to the Iberian extre-
mity of Europe, and from Sicily to the North Cape, furnishes
a large field for investigations of this nature into the first
or most ancient conditions of language. The same histori-

CONTLUCPLATIOir 09 THB UNIVERSE. 109

cal comparison of langoages leads ns to trace the native
country of certain productions which^ since the earliest
times, have been important objects of trade and baiter. We
find that the Sanscrit names of trae Indian productions, —
rice, cotton, nard, and sugar, — have passed into the Greeks
and partly even into the Semitic languages. (^^)

The considerations here indicated, and iQustrated by
examples, lead us to r^ard the comparative study of Ian-*
guages as an important meanstowards arriving, through scien«
tific and true phjlologic investigations, at a generalisation of
views in regard to the relationships of different portions of
the human race, which, it has been conjectured, have ex*
tended themselves by lines radiating from several points.

We see from what has been said, that the mtellectual
aids to the gradual development of the science of the Cos-
mosareofveryyaiiousldndsj they indude, for example, the
examination of the structure of lantmage, the decipherment
of andent inscriptioBS and hia3^n„ments in hiero-
glyphics and arrow-headed characters> and the increased
perfection of mathematics, and especially of that powerful
analytical calculus, which brings within our intellectual
grasp the figure of the earth, the tides of the ocean, and the
regions of space. To these aids we must add, lastly, the
material inventions, which have made for us, as it were,
Bew organs, heightening the power of the senses, and
bringing men into closer communication with terrestrial
forces, and with distant worlds. Noticing here only those
instruments which mark great epochs in the history of the
knowledge of nature, we may name the telescope, and its too
long delayed combination with instruments for angular
determinations; — ^the compound microscope, which affords

110 HISTO&Y O? THB PHYSIOIL

m the medns of following the processes of devebpment ia
ofganisation (the farmative activitj^ the origin of being
or prodoetioQ^ as Aristotle finely sajs) ; the compass^ with
the different mechanical ocmtrivances for investigating the
earth^s magnetism; the pendulum^ employed as a measui»
of time; the barometer; the thermometer; hjgrometric an^
electrometric apparatus; and the polarisoope^ in its applica-
tion to the phsenom^ia oi colored polarisation of lights
either of the heavenly bodies or of the illamined atmo-
sphere.

The histotj of tlte ^ysicd contemplation of the nnivars^
based^ as we have seen> on the thoughtful oonsideration of
natural phsenomena^ on the occurrence of influential eventjs
and on discoveries which have enlarged our ^sphere of per-
ception^ is> however^ to be here presented only in ita lead-
ing features, and in a fragmentary and general manner. I
flatter mydeK with the hope, that brevity in the treatment
may enable the reader more easily to apprehend the spirit in
which an miage> ao difficult to be defined, should, at some
future day, be traced. Here, as in the '^ picture of Ufttnre^
contained in the first volume of Cosmos, I aim not at eom*
pleteness in the enumeration of separate paarts^ but at a dear
development of leading ideas, sedii^> in the present caae^
to indicate some of the paths whidi may be traversed bj tfas
physical inquirer in historical investigations. I assume «t
the part of the reader such a knowledge of the diffeore&ft
events, and of their connection and causal relations, as niajf
render it suffident to name them, and to shew the influence
which they have exerted on the gradually increasing kxiow^
ledge and recognition of nature as a whole. Completeness^
I think it necessary to repesi, is neither attainable, nor it it

OONTBMTJLATIOK OF THS UNIVXBSB. Ill

to be regarded as the object of audi an uxdertaking. In

Biakiiig this announcemoit^ for the sake of preserving to my

vork ou the CSosmos the peculiar character whidi can alone

vender its execution possible, I doubtless expoae myself

anew to the strictures of those who dwell less on that which

% book eaatauiSy than on that which, according to their indi-

fidual views, ought to be found in it. I have purposely

eixteired lar moi^ into detail in the earlier than in the later

portions of history. Where the sources horn whence the

loatmals are to be diawn are less abundant^ combination is

less easy, and the opimons propounded may r^uire a foller

leferenee to aiothorities less ga)era% known. I have also

freioly permitted myself to treat my UAterials at unequal

leiigth, where the narration of particulars could impart a more

lively interest.

As the recognition of the Cosmos bq;an with intuitive
ipresentiments^ and with only a few actual observations made
on detached portions of the great realm of nature^ so it
appears to me, that the historical repiesentation of the con-
templation of the universe may fitly proceed first from a
limited portion of the earth's surface. I select for this pur*
pose the basin of the Mediterranean, around which dwelt thoae
nations from whose knowledge our western cultivation {Urn
only one of which the progress hss been almost unmter*
xupted), is immediately derived. We may indicate ti)epnn(»*
pal streams through which have flowed the elements of th^
milisaiion; and of the enlarged views of nature^ of western
Europe ; but we cannot trace back these streama toone com*
men primitive feuntain. A deep inai^t iitto the lorceaand
a recognition of the unity dl nature, does not b^ong to m
original and so-called primitive people, notwitiistaodii^
that such an ins%ht has been attnboted at dif erent peiiods»

112 mSTORT OF THE PHYSICAIi

and according to different historical views^ at one time to a
Semitic race in Northern Chaldea, (Arpaxad (***), the
Arrapachitis of Ptolemy)^ and at another, to the race of the
Indians and Iramuans in the ancient land of the Zend {^^^),
near the sources of the Oxus and the Jaxartes. History, as
founded on testimony, recognises no such primitive people
occupying a primary seat of civilisation, and possessmg a
primitive physical science or knowledge of nature, the light
of which was subsequently darkened by the vicious barbarism
of later ages. The student of history has to pierce through
many superimposed strata of mist, composed of symbolical
myths, in order to arrive at the firm ground beneath, on
which appear the first germs of human civilisation unfolding
according to natural laws. In the early twilight of histcny,
we perceive several shining points already established as cen-
ters of civilisation, radiating simultaneously towards each
other. Such was Egypt at least five thousand years hefort
our Era; (**^) such also were Babylon, Niniveh, Kashmeer,
and Iran, such too was China, after the first colony had
migrated from the north-eastern declivity of the Kuen-Iun
into the lower valley of the Hoang-ho. These central
points remind us mvoluntarily of the larger among the
sparkling fixed stars, those suns of the regions of space, of
which we know, indeed, the brightness, but, with few ex«
ceptions, (^^7) ^e are not yet acquainted with theur relative
distances from our planet.

A supposed primitive physical knowledge made known to
the first race of men-— a wisdom or science of nature pos-
sessed by savage nations, and subsequently obscured by
civilisation — can find no place in the history of which we
treat. We meet with sudi a belief deeply rooted in the
earliest Lidian doctrine of Krishna. {^^^ '* Truth was origi-

contvuplahok or thb ttnivebsb. IIS

nally deposited with men^ but gradually dombered and was
torgotien ; the knowledge of it retimis like a lecollectioD/'
We willingly leave it undecided whether the nations which
we now call savage are all in a condition of original natural
rudeness^ or whether^ as the structure of their languages
often leads us to conjecture^ many of them are not rather to
be regarded as tribes having lapsed into a savage state^ —
fragments remaining from the wreck of a civilisation which
was early lost. Qoser communication with these so-called
children of nature discloses nothing of that sup^or know*
ledge of terrestrial forces^ which the love of the marvelloia
has sometimes chosen to ascribe to rude nations. There
rises^ indeed^ in the bosom of the savage a vague and
awfdl feelii^ of the unity of natural forces; but such a
feeling has nothing in common with the endeavours to
embrace intellectually the connection of phenomena. ^Trae
cosmical views are the results of observation and ideal coni-
binatidn; thqr are the fruit of long-continued contact
between the mind of man and the external world. Nor are
they the work of a single people; in their formation, mutual
communication is required, and great if not general inter-
course between various nations.

As in the considerations on the reflex action of the external
World on the imaginative faculties, which formed the first
portion of the present volume, I gathered, from the general
history of literature, that which relates to the expression of
a vivid feding of nature, so in the '' history of ihe contem-
plation of the universe,'^ I select, from the history of general
intellectual cultivation, that which marks progress in the
rec<^nition of a natural whole. Both Ihese portions,
not detached arbitriarily, but according to detenninafe

11* mmORY OP TttB PHYSICAL

][«3niBipleB, bear to eexik oth^the same Kelations as do fhe
subjects of study from whiA tbey aie taken. The histoij
of the intcillectual cultivation of mankind includes the history
dF the eteuientwy powers of the human mind, and therefor©,
also, of the wotks in which these powers have manifested
tfaeioselves in the domains of literatore and art In a
nmilar manner we recognise in the depth and vividness of
the feeling for nature, whieh has been described as differently
manifested at different epochs and among different nations,
influential incitements to a more sedulous regard to phfis*
nomena, and to a grave sad earnest investigation of theit
cosmical eonneotioii.

The very variety of thfe sbreams by which the elements of
the enlarged knowledge of nature have beexk conveyed^ aad
spread uneqoaDy in the course of time over the earth's
surface, renders it advisable, as I have already remarked, to
lM^;in the history of cosmical contemplation with a ob^
group of nations, viz^ with that from which our present
western sdentific culture is derived* Hie mental eultivatioiil
of the Greeks and Bamans is, indeed, of very recent
origin compared with that of the Egyptians^ the Chinese^
and the Indians : but that which the Greeks and Bomans
received bam without, from tiie east and from the sotith^
associated with that which they thfioeoseilves originated ot
carried onwards towards perfection, has bem handed down
on European ground without interruption, notwithstanding
the constant changes of events, and the adndxtnre of foreign
elements by the arrival of fresh immigrating races.

The countries, on the other hand, in which many depart*
ments of knowledge were cultivated at a much earlier period,
haveeither lapsed into a state oi barbarism^ wheceby tliis know«

CONTEICPLilTXOH OF THB UmVISglB, 115

•

tsdge has been lost, or^ wbibfc preserving tl^
tkm and finnly established complex civil institutions^ as is the
ease with China^ they ha^e made extremely httle progress in
idence and in the indnstrial arts, and hare been still more de»
fici^t in participation in that intercourse with the rest of the
worldj without which general views cannot be formed. The
cultivated nations of Eorc^, and their descendants trans*
j^anted to other contiBents, have, by the gigantic extension of
tiieir maritime enterprises, made themselves, as it were, at
home simultaneously on ahnost every coast; and those
shores which they do not yet possess they threaten. In their
almost uninterruptedly inherited knowledge, and in their far-
dcscendedsdentific nomendatnre, we may discover land-marks
IS the history of mankind, recalling the various paths or chan-
nels by which important discoreries or inyentions, or at least
their germs, have been conveyed to the nations of Europe.
Thus from Eastern Asia has been handed down the know-
ledge of the directive force and declination of a £reely-sus*
pended magnetic bar ; from Phoenicia and Egypt, the know*
ledge of chemical preparations (as glass, animal and vegeta-
ble colouring substances, and metallic oxides); and from
India, the general use of position in determining the greater
or less value of a few numerical signs.

Since civilisation has left its early seats in the tropical or
sub-tropical zone, it has fixed itself permanently in that
part of the world, of which the most northern portions are
less cold than the same latitudes in Asia and Ammca. I
have already shewn how the continent of Europe is indebted
for the mildness of its dimate, so favourable to general
civilisation, to its character as a western peninsula of Asia;
to the broken and varied configuration of its coast line.

f

116 FHTSIOAL CONTEUPIATIOK OF THB UNIVEBSB.

extolled by Stiabo ; to its position relatively to Africa^ a broad
expanse of land within the torrid zone ; and to ike circum-
stance that the prevailing winds froi^i the west are warm winds
in winter^ owing to their passing over a wide extent of
ocean. {^^^) The physical constitation of the surface of
Europe has moreover offered fewer impediments to the spread
of civilisation^ than have the long-extended parallel chains of
mountains^ the lofty plateaus^ and the sandy wastes^ which
in Asia and Africa^ form barriers between different nations
over which it is difficult to pass.

In the enumeration of the leading epochs in the history
of the physical contemplation of the universe, I propose,
therefore, to dwell fimt on a small portion of the earth's
surface where intercourse between nations, and the enlarge-
inent of cosmical views which results from such intercourse,
have been most favoured by geograpliical relatione.

iir

niNCTPAL nraoHs js thb htsiobt at thb tstsical

OOHmCFLAXION OY TBM UHIVBBSa.

L

Tbe Meditenmnean taken as the point of deperhiie for the repxe*
sentation of the relatums vhich led to the gradual ertenaioii of
the idea of the Cosmos.— CJonnectioii ^th the earliest Greek
cultivation. — ^Attempts at distant nayigation towards the north*
east (the Aigonaats) ; towards the south (Ophir) ; and towarda
the west (Golsas of Samos).

Plato describes the nairow limits of the Meditenanean in
ft manner quite appropriate to enlarged cbsmogiaphical
views. He says, in the Fhsdo, (i*®) '' we who dwell from the
Fhasis to the Pillars of Hercoles, inhabit only a small portion
of the earth, in which we have settled round the (interior)
sea> like ants or £rogs around a marsh/' It is from this
narrow basin, on the maa^n of which Egyptian, Phcenician^
and Hellenic nations flonrished and attained a brilliant
civilisation, that the colonisation of great territories in Asia
and Africa has proceeded ; and that tliose nantical enter-
prises have gone forth, which have lifted the veil from tho
whole western hemisphere of the globe.

The present form of the Mediterranean shews ixaces of a
former subdivision into three smaller closed basins. (^^^)
The iEgean portion is bounded to the south by ^ curved line,
which, commencing at the coast of Gana in ABia Minor, is
formed by the islands of Bhodes, Crete, and Cerigo, joining

118 PBINCIPAL EPOCHS 15 THE HISTOEY OF THB

fhe, Peloponnesus not far &om Cape Malea. More to the
west we have the Ionian Sea, or the Syrtic basin, in which
Malta is situated : the western point of SicHy approaches to
within forty-eight geographical miles of the African shore;
and we might almost regard the sudden but transient eleva-
tion of the burning island of Perdinandea (1831), to the
southwest of the limestone rocks of Sciacca, as an effort of
nature to reclose the Syrtic basin, by connecting together Gape
Gnmtola, the Adventure bank (examined by Captain Smith),
{he island of PanteHaria, and the AfncanCapeBon, — and thus
to divide it from the third, the westemniost, or Tyrrhenian
basin. {}^^) This last receives the influx from the western oceaa
through the passage opened between the Pillaxs of Hercules,
and contains Sardinia and Corsica, the Balearic Islands, and
the small volcanic group of the Spanish Cohonbrato.

The peculiar form of the Mediterranean waa very in*
fluential on the eady imitation and later ext»Lsi(m of
fhisnicianand Grecian voyages ct discovery, of which the
atter were long restricted to the ^gean and Syrtic basins.
In ihe Homeric times, continental Itafy was still an
'' unknown land/' The Fhocaeans first opened the l^lmuan
bask west of Sicfly, and mi^igatars to Tartessus leacbed
ibe Pillars of Hercoles. It should not be ibrgotten that
Carthage was founded near the limits of the Tyrrljienian and
Syrtic basins* The march of ev^ts, the direction of nautical
undertakings, and changes in the possessioB of the empire
of (iie sea, reacting Oin the enlargement of the sphere of
ideas, have all been inflaenced by the physical configimtioa
of coasts.

A more richly varied and broken outiine gives U^ the
aorthem shcaro c^ the Mediterranean an advantage over Urn

pnYSIOAX. OONtUFLATlOK 09 TBI 0NIVB&8& 119

gontKeni or Lybian cbore^ 'wiieh, aeoording to Sfarabo^ was
remarked by Eratosthenes. The three great peninsulas^ (*'*)
the Iberian, the Italian, and the Hellenic, with their smnona
and deeply indented shores, form, in combination with the
ndghbourmg islands and Oj^osite coasts, nwny straits and
isthmuses. The configuration of the continent and of the
islands, the latter either severed from the main or volcara-
cally elevated in lines, as if over long fissures, early led to
geognostical views respecting eruptions, terrestrial revolu-
tions, and overpourings of the swollen higher seas into those
which were lower. 'Rie Euxine, the Dardanelles, the Straits
of Gades, and the Mediterranean with its many isknds, weie
well fitted to give rise to the view of such a system of
sluices. The Orphic Argonaut, who probably wrote in
Quristiaii times, wove antique legends into his song; he
describes the breaking up of the ancient Lyktonia into
several islands, when ''the dark-haired Poseidon, being
wroth with Father Eronion, smote Lyktonia with the golden
trident/' Similar phantasies, which, indeed, may often have
arisen from imperfect knowledge of geographical circum-
stances, proceeded from the Alexandrian school, where
erudition abounded, and a strong predilection was fdt for
antique legends. It is not necessary to determine here
whether the myth of the Atlantis broken into fragm^ts,
should be regarded as a distant and western reflex of that of
Lyktonia (as I think I have dsewhere shewn to be probable),
or whether, as Otfiied Mfiller considers, "the destruction of
Lyktonia (Leuconia) refers to the Samothracian tradition of a
great flood, which had changed the form rf that district." (^**)
But, as has already been often remarked, the circumstance'
which have most of all rendered the geographical position

ISO FBINC3IPAL BPOOHB IN THE HX8T0BT OV THB

Qf the Mediterranean so beneficently favourable to the mter-
course of nations, and the progressive extension of the
knowledge of the world, are the neighbourhood of the
peninsula of Asia Minor, projecting from the eastern conti-
nent; the numerous islands of the ^gean (^^^) which have
formed a bridge for the passage of civilisation; and the
fissure between Arabia, Egypt, and Abyssinia, by which the
great Indian ocean, under the name of the Arabian Gulf
or Bed Sea, advances so as to be only divided by a nar-
row isthmus from the Delta of the Nile, and from the
south-eastern coast of the Mediterranean. By means of
these gex)graphical relations, the influence of the sea, as the
*' uniting element,^' shewed itself in the increasing power of
the Phoenicians, and subsequefntly also in that of the Hellenic
nations, and in the rapid enlargement of the circle of ideas.
Civilisation in its earlier seats, in Egypt, on the Euphrates
and the Tigris, in the Indian Fentapotamia, and in China,
had been confined to the rich alluvial lands watered by wide
rivers; but it was otherwise in Phoenicia and in Hellas.
The early impulse to maritime undertakings, which shewed
itself in the lively and mobile minds of the Greeks and
especially of the Ionic branch, found a rich and varied fidd
in the remarkable forms of the Mediterranean, and in its
position relatively to the oceans to the south and west.

The Red Sea, formed by the entrance of the Indian Ocean
through the Straits of Bab el Mandeb, belongs to a dass of
great physical phsenomena which modem geology has made
known to us. The European continent has its principal
axis in a north-east and south-west line; but, almost at
right angles to this direction, there exists a system of fissures,
which have given occasion, in some cases, to the entrance

PflTBIOAL GOmXlCFLATION OF THB UNIYEBSB. 121

of the water of the sea^ and in others, to the elevation of
parallel ridges of motmtains. We may trace this transverse
strike in a south-east and north-west direction, from the
Indian Ocean to the mouth of the Elbe in northern
Germany; it shews itself in the Bed Sea which, in its
southern portion, is bordered on both sides by voleanic
rocks ; — in the Persian Gulf and the lowlands of the douUft
river Euphrates and Tigris; — in the Zagros mountain
chain in Louristan; — in the mountain chains of Greece
and the neighbouring islands of the Archipelago; — in
the Adriatic Sea;— and in the Dabnatian limestone Alps.
This intersection (^^) of two systems of geodesic lines,
N.E. — S.W. and S.E. — ^N.W. (concerning which I believe
the 8 Ji. — ^N.W. to be the more recent, and that both result
from the direction of deep-seated earthquake movements in
the interior of the globe), has had an important influence on
the destinies of men, and in facilitating the intercourse
between nations. The relative positions of Eastern Africa^
Arabia, and the peninsula of Hindostan, and their very
unequal heating by the sun's rays at different seasons of the
year, produce a regular alternation of currents of air
(Monsoons), (*57) favouring navigation to the Myrrhifera
Begio of the Adramites in Southern Arabia, and to the
Persian Gulf, India, and Ceylon. During the season of
north winds in the Eed Sea (April and May to October),
the south-west Monsoon prevails from the eastern shore of
Africa to the coast of Malabar; whilst from October to
April, the north-east Monsoon, which is favourable to the
return, coincides with the period of southerly winds between
tiie Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb and the Isthmus of Suez.
Having thus described the theatre on which the Greeks

122 niNorPAL Epocns in thb bjbsobj ov thb

might receive from different quarters foreign elements of
mental caltivation and the knowledge of other countriess,
I will next notice other nations dwelling near the Me-
diterranean^ who enjoyed an early and high degree of
civilisation — the Egyptians^ the Phoenicians with their north
and west African colonies^ and the Etruscans. Immigration
and commercial intercourse were powerful agents ; the more
our historical horizon has been extended in the most recent
times, as by the discovery of monuments and inscriptions,
and by philosc^hical investigations into languages, the
greater we find to have been the influence which, in the
earliest times, the Greeks exp^enced eten from the
Euphrates, &om Lycia., and through the Phrygians allied to
the Thradan tribes.

Ck)nceming the valley of the Nile, which plays so large a
part in history, Ifollow the latest investigations of Lepsius, {^^^)
and the results of his important expedition which throws light
on the whole of antiquity, in saying that " there exist well-
assured cartouches of kings belonging to the commence-
ment of the fourth dynasty of Manetho, which includes the
builders of the great pyramids of Gizeh (Chephren or Scha&a,
Gheops-Ghufu, and Menkera or Meucheres). This dynasty
eommenoed thirty-four centuries before our Christian era,
and twenty-three centuries before the Doric immigration of
the Heraclides into the Peloponnesus. (*59) The great
stone pyramids of Daschur, a little to the south of Gizeh
and Sakara, are considered by Lepsius to have been the
work of the third dynasty : there are sculptural inscriptions
on the blocks of which they are composed, but as yet no
kings' names have been discovered. The latest dynasty of
the " old kingdom/' which terminated at the invasion of the

PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATIOK 09 THE TTNIVEBSB. 128

Hyksos, 1200 years before Homer, was the twelfth of
Manetho, to which belonged Amenemha III. who made the
original labyrinth, and formed Lake Moeris artificially by
.excavation and by large dykes of earth to the north and
west. After the expulsion of the Hyksos, the '' new king-
,dom" begins with the eighteenth dynasty (1600 B.C.) The
great Aamses Miamoun (Eamses U.) was the second
monarch of the nineteenth dynasty. The representations on
3tone which perpetuated the record of his victories were
explained to Gkttnanicus by the priests of Thebes. (^^) He
was known to Herodotus under the name of Sesostris,
{>robably from a confusion with the almost equally warlike
;and powerful conqueror Seti (Setos), who was the &ther of
Eamses U.'*

I have thought it right to notice these few chronological
points, in order that, where we have solid historical ground,
we may determine approximately the relative antiquity of
great events in Egypt, Phoenicia^ and Greece. As I before
described in a few words the Mediterranean and its geo«
graphical relations, so I have thought it necessary here to
indicate the centuries by which the civilisation of the Yalley
of the Nile preceded that of Greece. Without this double
preference to place and time, we cannot, from the very
nature of our mental constitution, form to ourselves any
clear and satisfactory picture of history.

Gvilisation,earlyawaienedandarbitrarilymodeIledinEgypt
by the mental requirements of the people, by the peculiar
physical constitution of their country, and by their hierar-
chical and political institutions, produced there, as everywhere
eke on the globe, a tendency to intercourse with foreign na-
tions, and to distant military expeditions and settlements. But

VOL. II. K

124 7BIKCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY 07 THB

the records preserved to ns by history and by montanental
remains indicate only transitoiy conquests by land, and but
little extensive navigation by the Egyptians themsdvea.
This civilised nation, so ancient and so powerful, appears to
have done less to produce a permanent influence beyond its
own borders, than other races less numerous but more active
end mobile. The naticmal cultivation, favourable rather to
the masses than to individuals, was, as it were, geographically
insulated, and remained, therefore, probably unfruitful as
respects the extension of cosmical views. Bamses Miamoun
(from 1388 to 1322 b.c., 600 years, th^efore, before the
first Olympiad of Goroebus) undertook, according to Hero-
dotus, extensive miUtary ^peditions into Ethiopia (where
Lepsius considers that his most southern works are to be
found near Mount Barkal) ; through Palestinian Syria; and
passing from Asia Minor into Europe, to the Scythians^
Thracians, and finally to Colchis and the Phasis, on the
banks of which, part of his army, weary of their wander?
ings, finally settled. Samses was also the first — ^so said the
priests — ^who, with long ships, subjected to his dominion
the dwellers on the coast of the Erythrean, until at lengtli,
sailing onwards, he arrived at a sea so shallow as to be no
longer navigable. {^^^) Diodorus says expressly, that
l^esoosis (the great Eamses) advanced in India beyond the
Ganges, and that he also brought back captives from
Babylon. ''Tlie only well-assured fact in relation to the
nautical pursuits of the native ancient Egyptians is, that
from the earliest times they navigated not only the Nile, but
also the Arabian Gulf. The famous popper mines near
Wadi Magara, on the peninsula of Sinai, were worked as
early as in the time o£ the fourth dynasty, under Cheops^

PHTSICAL CONTEMPLATION 09 THE XTNIVEBfiE. lib

C!hafa. The inscriptioiis of Hamamat on the Gosseir load^
which connected the Valley of the Nile with the western
coast of the Bed Sea^ reach back as for as the sixth dynasty.
The canal &om Suez was attempted under Bamses the
Great, {^^^) the immediate motive being probably the inter-
course with the Arabian copper district/' Greater maritime
enterprises, such even as the often-contested, but I think,
not improbable, circumnavigation of Afirica(*^3j ^mder Nechos
11. (611 — 595 B.C.), were entrusted to Phoenician vessek.
Nearly at the same period, but rather earlier, under Nechos's
father, Psammetichus (Psemetek), and also somewhat later,
after the close of the civil war under Amasis (Aahmes),
hired Greek troops, by their settlement at Nauoratis, laid
the foundationsof a permanent foreign commerce, of the in-
troduction of foreign ideas, and of the gradual penetra-
tion of Hellenism into Lower Egypt. Thus was deposited
a germ of mental freedom, — of a greater independence of
local influences, — which developed itself with rapidity and
vigour in the new order of tilings which followed the Mace-
donian conquest. The opening of the Egyptian ports under
Psammetichus marks an epoch so much the more important
since until that period, Egypt, or at least her northern coast,
had been as completely closed against all foreigners as Japan
now is. (^^)

Amongst the cultivated nations, not Hellenic, who dwelt
eround the Mediterranean in the ancient seats where our
modem knowledge originated, we must place the Phce-
nicians next after the Egyptians. They must • be re-
garded as the most active intermediaries and agents in the
connection of nations from the Indian ocean to the west
and north of Europe. Limited in many spheres of intellec-

: 186 IPEINCIPAL i^POCHS IN THE HISTORY 0? TBM

. tual development^ and addisted rather to the mechanical than
to the fine arts^ with little of the graad and creative genius
of the more thoughtftd inhabitants of the Valley of the Nile,
r the Phoenicians, as an adventurous and far ranging com-
mercial people, and by the formation of colonies, one of
which far surpassed the parent city in political power,
,did nevertheless, earlier than all the other nations sur-
Tounding the Mediterranean, influence the course and ex*
.tension of ideas, and promote richer and more varied
views of the physical universe. The Phoenicians had Baby-
lonian weights and measures, {^^) and, at least after the
Persian dominion, employed for monetary purposes a stamped
metallic currency, which, singularly enough, was not pos-
sessed by the Egyptians, notwithstanding their advanced
political institutions aud skill in the arts. But that by which
the Phoeniciaos contributed most to the intellectual advance*
ment of the nations with whom they came in contact, was
by the communication of alphabetical writing, of which they
had themselves long made use. Although the whole legen-
•dary history of a particular colony, founded in Boeotia by
Cadmus, may remain wrapped in mythological obscurity,
yet it is not the less certain, that it was through the com-
mercial intercourse of the lonians with the Phoenicians that
the Greeks received the characters of their alphabetical writ-
ing, which were long termed Phoenician signs. (*^^) Accord-
ing to the views which, since ChampoUion's great discovery,
have prevailed more and more respecting the early condi^
tions of the development of alphabetical writing, the
Phoenician and all the Semitic written characters, though
ihey may have been originally formed from pictorial writiug^
vare to be regarded as a j>honetic alphabet; i. «. as an

FHTSIOAL CONTEMPLATION OP THE tJNIVEBSIf. 127

dphabet in which the ideal signification of the pictured
signs is wholly disregarded^ and these signs or characters
are treated exclasively as signs of sound. Such a phonetic
alphabet^ being in its nature and fundamental form a syllabic
alphabet^ was suited to satisfy all the requirements of a
graphical representation of the phonetic system of a language.
*' When the Semitic writing/' says Lepsius, in his treatise
on the alphabet, ''passed into Europe to Indo-Germanic
nations, who all shew a much stronger tendency to a irtrict
separation between vowels and consonants (a separation to
which they could not but be led by the much more significant
import of vowels in their languages), this syllabic alphabet
imderwent very important and influential changes." (^^7)
Amongst the Greeks, the tendency to do away with the
syllabic character proceeded to its full accomplishments
Thus not only did the communication of the Phoenician
signs to almost all the coasts of the Mediterranean, and even
to the north-west coast of Africa, facilitate commercial in-
tercourse and form a common bond between several civilised
cations, but this system of written characters, generalised
by its graphic flexibility, had a yet higher destination.
It became the depository of the noblest results attained by
the Hellenic race in the two great spheres of the intellect and
the feelings, by investigating thought and by creative imagina*
tion ; and the medium of transmission through which this im-
perishable benefit has been bequeathed to the latest posterity.
Nor is it solely as intermediaries, and by conveying an
fmpulse to others, that the PhceniciaQS have enlarged the
elements of cosmical contemplation. They also inde-
pendently, and by their own discoveries, extended the
fipliere of knowledge in several directions* Industrial

J

128^ PEINCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THB

prosperity, founded on extensive maritime commerce, and
on the products of labour and skill in the manufactures
of Sidon in wliite and coloured glass, in tissues, and in
purple dyes, led, as every where else, to advances in
mathematical and chemical knowledge, and especially in the
technical arts. " The Sidonians,'' says Strabo, " are de?
scribed as active investigators in astronomy as well as in
the science of numbers, having been conducted thereto by
arithftietical skill and by the practice of nocturnal naviga-
tion, both of which are indispensable to trade and to mari^
time intercourse/' (*®^) In order to indicate the extent of
the earth's surface first opened by Phoenician navigation and
the Phoenician caravan trade, we must name the settlements^
on the Bythinian coast (Pronectus and Bythinium), which
were probably of very early formation; the Cyclades and
several islands of the JSgean visited in the Homeric times;
the south of Spain, from whence silver was obtained (Tar*:
tessus and Gades) ; the north of Africa, west of the lesser
Syrtis (Utica, Hadrumetum, and Carthage); the countries in
the north of Europe, from whence tin (^®^) and amber were
derived; and two trading factories (^^o) i^ the Persian gul4
the Baharein islands Tylos and Aradus.

The amber trade, which was probably first directed to the
west Cimbrian coasts, (*^*) and only subsequently to the
Baltic and the country of the Esthonians, owes its first origin
to the boldness and perseverance of Phoenician coast navi«
gators. In its subsequent extension it offers, in the point
of view of which we are treating, a remarkable instance of the
influence which may be exerted by a predilection for even a
single foreign production, in opening an inland trade between
nations and in making known large tracts of country^ In

PHYSICAL CX>NTEMPLATION OF THIS UNIVBSSE. 129

the same way that the Phocsean Massilians brought the
British tin across France to the Bhone^ the amber was con-
veyed frojn people to people through Germany, and by the
Celts on either declivity of the Alps to the Padus, and
through Pannonia to the Borysthenes. It was this inland
traffic which first brought the coasts of the northern ocean
into connection with the Euxine and the Adriatic.

Phoenicians from Carthage, and probably from the settle>-
ments of Tartessus and Gades which were founded two
eenturies earUer, visited an important part of the northwest
coastof A&ica,extendingmuchbeyondCapeBojador; although
the Chretes of Hanno is neither the Chremetesof Aristotle's
Meteorology, nor yet our Gambia. (*y*) This was the locality
of the many towns of Tyrians (according to Strabo even as
many as 300,) which were destroyed by Pharusians and
JN^igritians. (^^^j Among them, Ceme (Dicuil's Gauleai,
according to Letronne) was the principal naval station and
chief staple for the settlements on the coast. In the west
the Canary islands and the Azores (which latter the son of
Columbus, Don Fernando, considered to be the first Cas-
sdterides discovered by the Carthaginians), and in the north
the Orkneys, the Faroe islands, and Iceland, became the in-
termediary stations of transit to the New Continent, They
indicate the two paths by which the European portion of
mankind became acquainted with Central and North America,
This consideration gives to the question of the period when
Porto Santo, Madeira, and the Canaries were first known to
the Phoenicians, either of the mother country or of the cities
planted in Iberia and AMca, a great, I might almost say a
universal, importance in the history of the world. In a
long protracted chain of events we love to trace the first

ISO rBINCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTOSt Olf THE

links. It is probable that^ from the fomidations of Tartesscul
and Utica by the Phoenicians, fully 2000 years elapsed before
the discovery of America by the northern route, «. e. before
Eric Bauda crossed the ocean to Greenland (an event which
was soon followed by voyages to North Carolma), and 2500
years before its discovery by the sonth western route taken
by Columbus from a point of departure near the ancient
Phoenician Gadeira.

In following out that generalisation of ideas which be^
longs to the object of this work, I have here regarded thd
discovery of a group of islands situated only 168 geogra^
phical miles from the coast of Africa, as the first link in a'
long series of efforts tending in the same direction, and
have not connected it with the poetic fiction, sprung from
the inmost depths of the mind, of the Elysium, the Islands
of the Blest, placed in the far ocean at earth's extremesi
bounds, and warmed by the near presence of the disk of the
setting sun. In this remotest distance was placed the seat
of all the charms of life, and of the most precious produce
tions of the earth ; (*7*) but as the Greeks' knowledge of tha
Mediterranean extended, the ideal land, the geographical
mythus of the Elysium, was moved farther and farther to thd
west, beyond the Pillars of Hercules. True geographical
knowledge, the discoveries of the Phoenicians,— -of the epoch
of which we have no certain information,— did not probably
£rst originate the mythus of the Fortunate Islands ; but thei
application was made afterwards, and the geographical dis^
covery did but embody the picture which the imagin^tioa
had formed, and of which it became^ M it were^ the suIh
stratum.

Later writers, such as the unknown compiler of the

rarsiciii oomasicPLATioN of thb itiiivxbsx. 131

^Collection of WonderM Narratioxis/' which was nscribed
to Aristotle and of which Tunstui made rise, and such an
the still more drcmnstantial Diodoros Sicnlns, when speak'^
iog of lovely islands^ which may be supposed to be the
Canaries, aUnde to the storms which may have occa^
sioned their accidental discovery. Phoenician and Caitha*
ginian ships, it is said, sailing to the settlements akeady
existing on the Coast of Lybia, were driven out to sea;
the event is placed at the early period of the Tyrrhenian
naval power, during the strife between the Tyrrhenian Pe«
lasgians and the Phcenicians. Statins Sebosus and the
Numidian King Juba first gave names to the different
islands, but unfortunately not Punic names, although cer«»
taanly according to notices drawn from Punic books. Ku*
tarch having said that Sertorius, when driven out of SpaiUi
and after the loss of his fleet, thought of taking refuge
''in a group, consisting of only two islands, situated
in the Atlantic, ten thousand stadia to the west of the
mouth of the Betis,'^ he has been supposed to refer to
the two islands of Porto Santo and Madeira, (^7^) ind^
cated not obscurely by Pliny as Purpurarise* The strong
current whichj beyond the Pillars of Hercules, sets from
north west to south east, may long have prevented the
icoast navigators from discovering the islands most distant
from the continent, of which only the smaller (Porto Santo)
was found inhabited in the fifteenth century. The curva^
ture of the earth would prevent the summit of the great
volcano of Teneriffe from being seen, even with a strong
refraction, by the Phoenician ships sailing along the coast of
the continent ; but it appears from my researches (*''^) that
it might have been discovered from the heights near Gape

I

/

133 raiNOIPAL EPOOHS IN THB HISTORY 09 THS ^

Eojador under favourable circumstances^ and especially
during eruptions^ and by the aid of reflection from an de-^
vated cloud above the volcano. It has even been asserted
that eruptions of Etna have been seen in recent times from
Mount Taygetos. (i^)

In noticing the elements of a more extended knowledge
6f the earth which esorly flowed in to the Greeks from other
parts of the Mediterranean^ we have hitherto followed the
Phoenicians and Carthaginians in their intercourse with the
northern countries from whence tin and amber w^te derived>
and in their settlements near the tropics on the west coast
of Africa. We have now to speak of a southern navigation
of the same people to far within the torrid zone^ four thou*
sand geographical miles east of Ceme and Hanno's westerd
hom^ in the Prasodic and Indian Seas. Whatever
doubts may remain as to the particular locnliiy of tha
distant " gold lands" Ophir and Supara, — whether these
gold lands were on the west coast of the Indian peninsula,
or on the east coast of Africa^ — ^it is not the less certain thai
this active Semitic race, early acquainted with written chai
racters, roving extensively over the surface of the earthy
and bringing its various inhabitants into relation with each
other, came into contact with the productions of the most
varied cUmates, ranging from the Cassiterides to south of
the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, and far within the region of
the tropics. The Tyrian flag waved at the same time in
Britain and in the Indian ocean. The Phoenicians had
formed trading settlements in the most northern part of th((
Arabian Gulf, in the harbours of Elath and Ezion Geber, a^
well as in the Persian Gulf at Aradus and Tylos, where^
according to Strabo, there were temples similar in their

raYSICiL GONTEHPLATION OT THE UKIYSBSB, ISS'

style of architecture to those of the Mediterranean. (^7^)
The caravan trade which the Phoenicians carried on^ in order
to procure spices and incense^ was directed by Fabnyra to
Arabia Pelix^ and to the Chaldean or Nabathseic Qeriha» oa
the western or Arabian shore of the Persian Gulf.

The expeditions of Hiram and Solomon^ conjoint under*
takings of ^he Tyrians and Israelites^ sailed from Ezion
Geber through the Straits of Sab-el-Mandeb to Ophir
(Opheir^ Sophir^ Sophara, the Sanscrit Supara(^7^) of
Ptolemy). Solomon^ who loved magnificence, caused a
fleet to be built in the Eed Sea, and Hiram supplied him
with Phoenician mariners well acquainted with navigation,
and also Tyrian vessels, '^ship^ of Tarshish/^ (^^) The*
articles of merchandise which were brought back from Ophir
were gold, silver, sandal wood (algummim), precious stones/
ivory, apes (kophim), and peacocks (thukkiim). The names
by which these articles are designated are not Hebrew but
Indian. (^®^) The researches of Gesenius, Benfey, and
Lassen, have made it extremely probable that the western
shores of the Indian peninsula were visited by the Phoeni-^
cians, who, by their colonies in the Persian Gidf, and by^
their intercourse with the Gerrhans, were early acquainted
with the periodically blowing monsoons. Columbus was
even persuaded that Ophir (the El Dorado of Solomon), and
the mountain Sopora, were a part of Eastern Asia — of the
Chersonesus Aurea of Ptolemy. {^^^) If it seem difficult to
view "Western India, as a country productive in gold, it will
be sufficient, without referring to the ''gold-seeking ants,J*
or to Ctesias's unmistakable description of a foundry, (in
which, however, according to his account, gold and iron,
were melted together), {^^) to remember the vicinity of

184 PEINCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THB

several places notable in this respect. Such are thd
Southern part of Arabia, the Island of Dioscorides (Diu
Zokotora of the modems, a corruption of the Sanscrit
Dvipa Sukhatara), cultivated by Indian settlers, — and the
auriferous East AMcan coast of Sofala. Arabia, and the
island just mentioned to the south east of the Straits of
Bab-el-Mandeb, formed for the \;ombined Phoenician and
Hebrew commerce intermediate and uniting links between
the Indian peninsula and the East Coast of Africa. Indians
had settled on the latter from the earliest times as on a
shore opposite to their own, and the traders to Ophir might
find in the basin of the Erythrean and Indian Seas other
sources of gold than India itself.

Less influential than the Phoenicians in connecting dif-
ferent nations and in extending the geographical horizon,
, and early subjected to the Greek influence of Pelasgic Tyr-
rhenians arriving from the sea, we have next to consider the
austere and gloomy nation of the Etruscans. A not incon^^
siderable inland trade with the remote amber countries was
carried on by them, passing through Northern Italy, and
across the Alps, where a " via sacra*' (^^) was protected by all
the neighbouring tribes. It seems to have been almost by the
same route that the primitive Tuscan people, the Basense, came
from Bhsetia to the Padus, and even still farther southward.
That which is most important to notice, according to the
point of view which we have selected, and in which we seek
always to seize what is most general and permanent, is the
influence exerted by the commonwealth of Etruriai on the
earliest Boman civil institutipns^ and thus upon the whole
of Boman hfe. The reflex action of this influence, in its re-
motely derived consequences, may be said to be still politically

^nrSICAL CONTEHFIx/LTION 0? THE U17IVESSE. 18!^

operative even at the present day^ in as far as through Eome
it has for centuries promoted^ or at least has given a pecu*
liar character to the civilisation of a large portion of thef
human race. {^^)

A peculiar characteristic of the Tuscans, which is espe-
cially deserving of notice in the present work, was the dis?
position to cultivate intimate relations with certain natural
phsenomena. Divination, which was the occupation of the
caste of equestrian and warrior priests, occasioned the daily
observation of the meteorological processes of the atmo?
uphere. The ^^Pulguratores^' occupied themselves with the
examination of the direction of lightnings, with *^ drawing
them down," and '' turning them aside/' {^^) They dis-
tinguished carefully between lightnings from the elevated
region of clouds, and lightnings sent from below by Saturn
(an earth god), (^^7) and called Satumian Ughtnings: a distinc-
tion which modem physical science has considered deserving
of particular attention. Thus there arose official records of
the occurrence of thunderstorms. (^^) The " AquaBlicium**
practised by the Etruscans, the supposed art of finding water
iBuid drawing forth hidden springs, implied in the Aquilegee
an attentive examination of the natural indications of
the stratification of rocks, and of the inequalities of the
ground. Diodorus praises their habita of investigating
nature ; it may be remarked in addition, that the high-bom
and powerful sax^erdotal ca^te of the Tarquinii offered tho
rare example of favouring physical knowledge.

Before proceeding to the Greeks, — ^to that highly gifted
race in whose intellectual culture our own is most deeply
rooted, and through whom has been transmitted to us an
important part of all the earlier views of nature^ and know-*

136 PRINCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THB

ledge of countries and of nations, — ^we have named the more
ftneient seats of civilisation in Egypt, Phoenicia, and Etruria;
and have considered the basin of the Mediterranean, in its
peculiarities of form and of geographical position relatively
to other portions of the eaJrth's surface, and in regard to the
influence which these have exerted on commercial inter-
course with the West Coast of Africa, with the North of
Europe, and with the Arabian and Indian Seas. No por-
tion of the earth has been the theatre of more frequent
changes in the possession of power, or of more active arid
Varied movement under mental influences. The progressiva
movement propagated itself widely and enduringly through
the Greeks and the Romans, and especially after the
latter had broken the Phoenicio-Oarthaginian power. That
which we call the beginning of history, is but the record
of later generations. It is a privilege of the period at
which we live, that by brilliant advances in the general and
comparative study of languages, by the more careful search
for monuments, and by their more certain interpretation, the
historical investigator finds that his scope of vision enlarges
daily; and penetrating through successive strata, a higher
antiquity begins to reveal itself to his eyes. Besides the
different cultivati^d nations of the Mediterranean which we
have named, there are also others shewing traces of ancient
civilisation, — as in Western Asia the Phrygians and Lycians,
-^and in the extreme west the Turdali and Turdetani. {^^)
Strabo says of the latter, "they are the most civilised of all
the Iberians; they have the art of writing, and possess
written books of old memorials, and also poems and laws in
metrical verse, to which they ascribe an age of six thousand
years/' I have referred to these particular instances as

PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIYEESE. 187

indicating how much of ancient cultivation^ even in Enro*
pean nations^ lias disappeared without leaving traces which
we can follow; and for the sake of shewing that the history
6f early oosmieal views^ or of the physical contemplation of
which we treat, is necessarily confined within restricted limits^

Beyond the 48th degree of latitude, north of the sea of
Azof and of the Caspian, between the Don, the Volga., and
the Jaik, where the latter flows from the southern and auri«
fi^ous portion of the Ural, Europe and Asia melt as it were
into each other in wide plains or steppes. Herodotus, and
before him Fherecydes of Syros, considered the whole of
Northern Scythiaa Asia (Siberia), as belonging to Sannatic
Europe, {^^) and even as forming a part of Europe itself«
Towards the south, Europe and Asia are distinctly separated ;
but the &r projecting peninsula of Asia Minor, and the
varied shores and islands of the ^gean Sea, forming, as it
were, a bridge between the two continents, have afforded an
easy transit to races, languages, manners, and civilisation*
Western Asia has been from the earhest times the great
highway of nations migrating from the East, as was the
north-west of Hellas for the Illyrian races. The archipelago
of the iBgean, divided under Fhoenician, Persian, and Greek
dominion, formed the intermediate link between the Greek
world and the far East.

When the Phrygian was incorporated with the Lydiaa
find the latter with the Persian empire, the circle of ideas of
the Asiatic and European Greeks was enlarged by the
contact. The Persian sway was extended by the warlike
entCTprises of Cambyses and Darius Hystaspes, from Cyrene
and the Nile to the fruitful lands on the Euphrates and the
Indus. A Greek, jSoylax of £aryanda, was employed to

r

188 PEINCIPAL EPOCHS IS THE HI8T0ET OP THB

examine the course of the Indus^ from the then kingdom <^
Eashmeer (Kaspapyrus), {^^^) to the mouth of the river.
The Greeks had carried on an active intercourse mih
Egypt (with Naucratis and the Felusiac arm of the Nile)
under Psammetichus and Amasis^ {^^^) before the Persian
conquest. In these various ways many Greeks were with-

distant colonies which we shall have occasion to refer to in
the sequel^ but also as hired soldiers^ forming the nucleus of
foreign armies^ in Carthage^ {^^^) Egypt, Babylon, Persia^
and the Bactrian country round the Chnis.

A deeper consideration of the individual character and
popular temperament of the diiSerent Greek races has shewn,
that if a grave and exclusive reserve in respect to all beyond
their own boundaries prevailed amongst the Dorians, and par-*
tially among the .Allans, the gayer Ionic race, on the other
hand, were distinguished by a vividness of life, incessantly
stimulated by energetic love of action, and by eager desire
of investigation, to expand towards, the world without as well
as to expatiate in inward contemplation. Directed by the ob-
jective tendency of their mode of thought, and embellished

«

by the richest imagination in poetry and art, Ionic life,
when transplanted in the colonised cities to other shores,
scattered every where the beneficent germs of progressive
Cultivation.

As the Grecian landscape possesses in a high degree the
peculiar charm of the intimate blending of land and seaj^ (^^)
80 likewise was the broken configuration of the coast line,
which produced this blending, well fitted to invite to early
navigation, active commercial intercourse, and contact vrith
litrangers* The dominion of the sea by the Cretans and

ntsicjOi eonTEuvLATRw C9 TsonrsfUMiusB, 189

Sbodians was follimed hf ttw expeditions of the
VhocssssiB, TapHants^ and ThespiotianB^ which, it must bo
admitted, were at first directed to canyii^ off captiyes and
to plunder. Hesiod^s aversion to a maritime life may
probably be regarded as an individual aentimeiity though it
may also indicate that at an early stage of dvilisation inex»
perience and timidity arising from want of knowledge of
naatieal affairs prevailed on the mainland ef Gteeoe. On
the other hand, the most ancient legendary stories and myths
relate to extensive wandenngs, as if the yonthfiil fancy of
mankind delighted in the contrast betwem these ideal
creations and the restricted reality. Examples of these are
seen in Ihe joumeyings of Dicmysns and ef the- Tytisn
Bercnles (Melkart, in the temj^e at Gadeiia), the wan*
darings of lo, (^9^) and those of the often resuscitated
Aiisteas, of the marvdious Hyperb(«ean Abaris, in whose
guiding arrow (^^) some have thought that they recognised
the compass. We see in these joumeyings the reciprocal
reflection of occurrences and of ancient views of the world, and
we can even trace the reaction of the progressive advance in
the latter on the mixed mythical and historical narrations.
In the wanderings of the heroes returning from Troy, Aris^
tonichus makes Menelaus drcumnavigate Africa^ (^^7) and
sail from Gkdeira to India five hundred years before Necho8«
In the period of which we are now treating, i. e. in the
history of the Oreek world previous to the Macedonian ex-
peditions to Asia, three classes of events espedaBy influenced
the Hellenic view of the universe; these were the attempts
made to penetrate beyond the basin of the Mediterranean
towards the East, the attemptiS towards the West, and the foun<»
dstion of numerous colonies from the Straits of Hercules to ih0

VOL. 11. L

140 FBINCIPAL»BPOOHS IN THE HI8T0SY OF THB .

North Eastern part of the Euxine. These Greek cdoiuai-
irere far more varied in their political constitution^ and far •
more favourable to the pr(^ess of intellectual cultivation^ ,
than those of the Bhoeniciaus and Carthaginians in the
^gean Sea^ in Sidly, Iberia, and on the North and West .
Coasts of Africa. .

Ihe pressing forwards towards the East about twelve,
eenturies before our era and a century and a half afi;er.
Bamses Miamoun (Sesostris), when regarded as an historical .
event, is called the " expedition of the Argonauts to Colchis/*
The actual reality which, in this narration, is clothed in a .
mythical garb, or mingled with ideal features to which the .
minds of the narrators gave birth, was the fulfilment
of a national^ desire to <^en tho inhospitable Euxine. The
legend of Prometheus, and the unbinding the chains of the
fee-bringiug Titan on the Caucasus by Hercules in jour-
neying eastward)— the ascent of lo from the valley of the
Hybrites {^^^) towards the- Caucasus, — ^and the mythus of.
Phryxus and'HeUe, — all point to the same path on which.
Phoenician navigators had earlier adventured.

Before the Doric and ^olic migration, the Boeotian Or-
chomenus, near the north end of the Lake of Copais, was a •
rich commercial city of tiie Minyans. The Argonautic ex-
pedition, however, began at lolchus, the chief seat of the .
^essalian Minyans on the Pagasaean Gulf* , The locality of
the^egend, which, as respects the aim- and supposed termi-
nation of the enterprise, has at different times undergone
various modifications, (^^^) became attached to the mouth of
the Phasift (Rion), and to Colchis, a seat of more ancient
civilisation, instead of to the undefined distant land of jEa.
t!he voyages of the Milesians^ and the numerous towns

PHISZCAL OONTEMPLA/nOK OT THE UNIVEBSB. 141

planted by them on the Enxiney procured a more exact
knowledge of the north and east boundaries of that sea, thus
giving to the geographical portion of the mythus more
d^nite outlines. An important series of new views b^aii
at the same time to open; the west coast of the neighbour*'
ing Caspian had long been the only one known, and Heca*
tsBus still regarded this western shore (^ as that of the
encircling eastern ocean ; it was the venerable > father of
history who first taught the fact^ which after him. was
again contested for six centuries until the time of Ptolemy;
that the Caspian Sea is a closed basin^ surrounded by.
land on every side.

In the north east corner of the Black Sea an extensive
field was also opened to ethnology. Men were astonished
at the multipUciiy of languages which they encountered ; (^^)
and the want of skilful interpreters (the first aids and rough
instruments of the comparative study of languages) was
strongly felt. The exchange of commodities led traders be-
yond the Mseotic Gulf (which was supposed to be of far
larger dimensions than it reaUy is)^ through the steppe
vrhere the horde of the central Kii^his now pasture thdr
herds, — and through a chain of Scythian-Scolotic tribes of
the Argippseans and Issedones (who I take to be of Indo-
Germanic (202) origm), to the Arimaspes {^^) dwelling on*
the northern declivity of the Altai, and possessing much-
gold. . Here is the ancient " kingdom of the Grifim/' the'
site of the meteorological mythus of the Hyperboreans, (^o*)
which has wandered with Hercules far to the westward.

It maybe conjectured that the part of Northern Asia
ibove alluded to (which has again been rendered cele-
)rated in our own .days by the Siberian gold washings), as

-U I

li& TSmCIPAI. EfOGBB m THK maiOllT <» THB

iceH fis the laarge qnantily of gold whichj in the tine of
HerodotaSy had beea accomitlated asioiig the Massagets
(a tribe of Gothic descent)^ became^ bj means of the intse*
Course q>e&ed with the Eiudne^ an importanif: source of
wealth and hixuzy to the Greeks. I place the locality ai
tttts souzee between the 59d and &5th d^iees of latitade*
'Ehe r^on of atmfiorous sand, of which the Daradas
(Dafders os Derdevs^ menticaied in the Mahabharata^ and
ia the fragments of Megasthenes^) ga^e intelligence to the
travellers^ and with which the often repeated &ble of the
g^gantie ante became conaected, owing to the accidental
double meaning of a name^ (^^) belongs to a more southern
latitude|S&^ or 37^. It would fall (accordmg to which ot
two combinatictts was preferred)^ either in the Thibetian
high land east of the Bohtt dain^ between the Himalayaand
Ku^-ltio^ west of lakardo ; or north of those mountains^ to*
wards the desert of Gobi, which is also described as bdng rich
in gold by the Chinese traveller and accurate observer Hiuen«
tiisangj in the beginning of the seventh century of our enu
How much more accessible to the trade of the Milesian
colonies on the north east of the Euxine, must have been
the gold of the Azimaspes and the Massagetee ! It has
appeared to me suitable to the subject of the present portion
of my work> to allnde thus generally to all that belongs to
an important and stiU recently operating result of the
opening of the Euxine, and of the first advances of the
Greeks towards tiie East.

The great event, so productive of change, of the Done
migration and the return of the Heradidse to the Pelopon-
nesus^ falls about a century and a half after the semi*
s^hical e^^edition of the Argonai^ts, i. e. after the opening

JMYBIOAL OOKTEICFLATXON Of THE UNrnSBSB.

of the Eoxine to Greek Bavigatioii and oommeree. Ttnk
migration, together with the fonndation of new states and
new institntions, first gave rise to the syntematie establish^
dent of odonial cities^ whidi markiB an important epodi in
tiie histcHy of Greece^ and nidch became most inflnential on
mtellectaal cultivation based on enlarged views of the
natoral wodd* The more intimate connection of Enrc^
and Asia was especially dependent on ihe establishment of
oolonies; thej formed a diain from Sinope, Dioscnrias, and
the Taoiic Panticapeenm, to Ssffontnm and Gyrene; the
latter founded from the rainless Theiik

By no andenl nation were more nnmerons, or for the
most part more powerful, cdinial cities established ; bift
it diould also be remarked, that four or five centuries
dapsed from the foundation of the ddest ^olian colonieii,
among which Mytilene and Smyrna wero chiefly distin>
guished, to the foundation of Syracuse, Oroton, and Gyrene.
The Indians and the Malays only attempted the formatioli
of fedble setdem^ts on ihe East Coast of Africa, in Soco-
toia (Diosooiides), and in the Soutiii Asiatic Archipehgo.
The Phoenicians had, it is tin^ a h^hly advanced colonial
system, extendmg over a still larger space than the Grecian^
sfxetching (althou^ with wide interruptions between the
stations) ftoQi the Feroian Gulf to Cerne on the West Coast
of Africa. No mother country has ever founded n colony
which became at once so powerfrd in conquest and in com^
toerce as Gaitlu^ But Caithage, notwithstanding W
greatness, was iiur infmor to the Greek colonial cities in all
that belongs to intellectual culture^ and to the most nobis
and beantafol creations of art

X^et itf not forget that tbeie fioarished at the same ttma

' 144 PRINCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTOET- OF TfiE

many populous Greek cities in Asia Minor, on the shores of
the iBgean Sea, in Lower Italy, and in Sicily; that Miletus
.and Massilia became, like Carthage, the founders of fresh
colonies ; that Syracuse, at the sununit of its power, fought
^against Athens, and against the armlet of Hannibal and of
.Hamilcar ; and that Miletus was for a long time the fijcst
commercial city in the world after Tyre and Carthage.

Whilst ahfe so rich in inteUectnal moveiment and aninw
tion was thus developed externally by the activity of a people
, whose internal state was so often violently agitated, and whilst
the native cultivation, transplanted to other shores, propa-
, gated iiSeK< afresh, and prosperity increased, new germs
of mental national development were every where elicited.
Community of language and of worship bound together
the most distant members, and through them the mother
.country took part in. the wide circle of the. life of other
nations. Foreign elements were received into the Greek
world without detracting anything from ths greatness of its
,own independent character. No doubt the influence of con-
tact with the East, and with Egypt before it had beeome
Persian, more than a hundred years before,- the invasion of
Cambyses,-^inust have been more permanent in its nature,
.than the influence of the settlements of Cecrops from Sais,
of Cadmus from FhoBnioia, and of Danaus from Chemmi;?,
the reality of which has been much contested, and.is atle^
wrapped in obscurity.

The peculiar characteristics which, pervading the whqjb

« organisation of the Greek colonies, distinguished them troi^k

all others^ and especially from the Phoenician, arose from the

distinctness and original diversity of the races : into^whiih

f the parent nation was divided. Iii the HeUeniaookiiues,

tHB PHYSICAL CONTBltPLATION OF THE UNIVEBSB. 14 &

(ms in all that belonged to ancient Greece^ there existed a
^.mixture of uniting and dissevering forces, which by their
opposition imparted variety of tone, form, and character, not
only to ideas and feelings, but also to poetic and artistic
conceptions, and gavo to all that rich loxuriance and fulness
of life, in which apparently hostile forces are resolved, accord-
ing to a higher universal order, into combining harmony.

If Miletus, Ephesus, and Colophon were Ionic, Cos,

.'Bhodes, and Halicamassus Doric, and Croton and Sybaris

Achaian, yet in the midst of all this diversity, and ^ven

where, as in lowar Italy, towns founded by different races

dtood side by side, the power of the Homeric songs exer-

ccised over all- alike its uniting spell* Notwithstanding the

•deeply rooted contrasts of manners and of political institu-

tiops, and notwithstanding the fluctuations of the latter,

'. still Oreek nationality remained unbroken and undivided,

■ and the :wide range of ideas and of lypes of art, achieved

by tiie several races, was regarded as the common propertjr

aA the entire united nation*

. There still remains to notice, in the present section, the
tiiird point to wMch I before referred, as having been, con-
lenrrently with the opening of the Euxine, and the establish-
ment of colonies along the margin of the Mediterranean,
influential ^ on . the enlargement of physical views. The
foundation of Tartessus and Gades, where a temple was
dedicated to the wandering divinity Melkart (a son of
Baal), and the colony of Utica, more ancient than Carthage,
remind us that Phoenician ships had sailed in the open
. ocean for several centuries, when the straits, which Pindar
\. termed: the ^^ Gadeirian Gate" {^),'weTt still closed to the
<;,Gxeek3* As:the'MUesians.in;.theEast, by opening the

146 ZAASINfi XBOGHS IN TBB BESflOIKY OF TIDi

Eimne (^^), kid tbe groundwork of commnnicafioiB wUdii
led to aa active overland comm^^ce with the north of Euicips
and Asia, and in much lat» tkoes with the Qxos and the
. Indus, 80 the S^oianB (^ audtiie FhoeanaB (^9) were the
first among tiie Greeks who sought to pendrate to ihe weeik
bsjond the limits of the Mediterranean*

OolsBus of Samos sailed iot Egypt, where at ibak
time 1^ interooorse with the Gredcs (wMch perhaps was
onfy the remewal of former commnnications) liad began
to take jdaoe under Psammetidios ; he was dnven \q
easteilj winds and tonpests to the ishmd of Platea, and
ihence, Hecodotos signfficsntly aidds ** not without dime
dsxec&m/* ihsongh the Straits into the ocean. It was net
. jnerely the nmgnitade of ihe unexpected gain of a conmiercB
opened with the Iberian Tartessos, but sfciH more the dis*
covery in «pace, ik^ eixtranee into a worM before unknown
ior thoi^ht of only in mythical conjectures, whidi gave to
4liis event graud^ur and oelebrity tlnx)iQ^umt the Mediter-
ranean, wherever the Greek tongne was undezstood. Beed,
beyond the PiJlazs of Hercules (earii^ cafied the PiUam of
Sriarens, of JBgseon, and ^<konos), at the western margii
of the Earth, on the way to ^e Elyeian re^OBs and to the
Hesperides, the Ored^s first saw the primeval waters of the
all-encirding ocean {mpo$^) (^^), ^ origin, astii^ believe^
of all rivers.

On arrivmg at the Vbma, the «q>lorejB of the Enadns
had found that sea tenainated by a shone, bqrond which a
labled ''6un lake'' was supposed to exist; Imt the Gbeeb
who reaphed the Atlantic, on looking soiMliwaKd iam
Cfadeira and Tartessus, gazed onward into s boundlsBS
o^gion, Jt was tUa wluch, for fiftem hundred years^ gsft

rBJsaiASs coNTUWLAXfoir ov TBS TOirmasx. UT

io the ^'gate of the interior sea'' « peculiar ittportanoeu
Ever strotdbing forwards towards that whieh laj bqroftd*
one maiiEtime people after anothei^ PhoBoiciaBgy Greeks^
Arabians^ Catalans^ Mijoreans^ FrenehsLen firom Dieppe
land La BocheUc^ Genoese^ Yenetjansj Pcurtqgaese^ and
Spaniardsy made snccessive efEbrts to penetrate onwaids ia
Hie Atiantie OoeaOf which was hmg r^arded as a varj,
shallow^ misfy sea of darkness (nuoe tenebrosun) ; unti], «
at were station bj station, by the Caiudes and the Azaree^
ihey at last arrived at the New Continent^ whidi^ howereiV
Northmen had aheadj reacted at aa eadier period and bjr
juaother route.

When the eipediliaBS of Alexainder irere malmg known
to the Greeks the regions of the East, conaideratioBS on
the form of the Earth were leading the great Stagirite
(^^^) to the idea of the nearness of India to the Pillars
^ Hercules.^ Strabo even formed the oonjecture, that in
the northern hemisphere— -perhaps in the parallel which
fasses throngh the Pilkrsj through the island of Ehodes,
and throngh Thinffi — ''there might exist intermediatelj be-
tween the shores of western Europe and«astem Asia several
other habitable lands" {^^^). The assigmnent of th^
locality of such lands in ihe continnaticm of the length of
the Mediterranean was ^connected with a grand geographical
view put forward by Eratosthenes and extensively enter-
tained in antiquity, according to which the whole of the
old €ontii^nt, in its widest extent from west to east, nearly
in the parallel of 86°, would form an almost continuous line
of elevation P^').

But the expedition of Golrous of Samos not only marked
an epoch which ofEered to the Greek raees, and to the

148 THE PHYSICAL COWTBMPLATTON OF THE TJ^^VERSB.

nations which inherited their civilisation, new prospects and
A new outlet for maritime enterprises, — ^it was also the means
of making known a fact by which the range of physical
ideas was more immediatdy enlarged. A great natural
phenomenon which, by the paiodical upraising of the level
' of the sea, renders visible the relations which connect the
Earth with the Moon and the Sun, now first permanently
arrested attention. When seen in the Syrtes of Africa, this
phenomenon had appeared to the Greeks accidental and
irr^ular, and had been sometimes even an occasion of danger,
Posidonius now observed the ebb and flood at Ilipa and
Gadeira, and compared his observations with what the
jexperienced Phoenicians were able to tdl hmi respecting
the influence of the Moon. ^^)

140

ISPOCH.S IN TEOB HISTOEY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF TOTI
UNIVJiiSSE. CONQUESTS OF ALEXANDER.

n.

Ifiiitarj Expeditions of the Macedonians nnder Alexander the Great.
— Change in the mutual relations of different parts of the
World. — ^Fusion of the West with the East, by the promotion,
through Greek influence, of a union between different nations
&om the Nile to the Euphrates, the Jaxartes and the Indus.-*--
The knowledge of nature possessed by the Greeks suddenly
enlarged, both by direct observation^ and by intercourse with
nations addicted to industry and commerce, and possessing aa
ancient civilization.

The Macedoman Expeditions under Alexander the Greaty
the downfal of >the Persdan Empire^ the begioning of int^-
conise with Western India!, and the influence of the 116
years' duration of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom^ mark one ot
the most important epochs of General History; or of thM
part of the progressive development of the History of the
Human Bace^ which treats of the more intimate communi-
cation and union of the European countries of the West
.with South-Westem Asia, the Valley of the Nile and Lybisu
The sphere of the development of community of life, or of the
common action and mutual influence of different nation3j
was not only immensely enlarged in material space, but it
was also powerfully strengthened, and its moral grandeui
increased, by the constant tendency of the uncepsing eSocfai

ISO SPOCHS IN THB mSTORT OF THE OONTEHPLATION

of the conqueror towards a blending of all the different
faces, and the formation of a general unity, under the ani-
mating influences of the Grecian spirit (3^^). The founda-
tion of so many new cities at points the selection of which
indicates higher and more general aims, the formation and
arrangement of an independent community for the govem-
ment of those cities, the tenderness of treatment towards
national usages and native worship, aU testify that the phn
for a great organic whole was laid. At a later period, as it
always the case, much which may not have been originally
comprehended in the pkn, developed itsdf from the
aiature of the rdbtions^ established. If we remembei
that only 6t Olympiads elapsed from the battle of the
<3ramcus to the destructive irruption of the Sacse and
^ochan into Bactria, we shall look with admiration on
the permanent influence, and the wonderfully uniting and
combining power of the Greek cultivation thus introduced
from the West; which mingled with Arabian, and with
later Pearsian and Indian knowle%e, exerted its actioti
ontfl far into the middle ages, so as to render it often
^doubtful what to ascribe to Grecian influence, and what to
the original spirit of invmtion or discovery of those Asiatio
nations.

All the civil institutions and measures of this dating
0(mqu^(»r shew that the principle of union and unity, of
xather a sense of tiie useful pditical influence of this
iprinciple, was deeply seated in his mind. Even as applied
to Greece, it had been early impressed upon him by hid
great teacher. In the Politics of Aristotle {^^^) we read : —
^The Asiatic nations are not wanting in activity of mind
isd skill in art 5 yet they live listlessly in subjection and

OV THS T7NIFSXS1L QflBWJXSIS QEP AUDU2IDE1U ISI

servitaicle, nrhik the QjxAb, vigorous sod soaceptible, living
in freedoia and tfaerefbre vdl govemed, mff^A^^ iftkey teem
untied in one stale, subdue and rule over all barbarians^
ThiiB the Stf^irite wrote duriag bis second stay at Athem
(^1^7)^ before AlexKider had yet passed the Gramcns. These
nasims^ howevear the Stagirite might elsewhere hav«
q^ea of an unlimited dinninioB {riuf^wCUia) as nanatujraljL
doubtless made a more powerful impression on the mind (A
the conqueror, than the imaginative accounts of India
given by Ctesias, to which August Wilhebn von Schlegel.
and before him Bte. GroJj^ aUxibated so much impcv-
tance (^w).

The preceding section was devoted to a brief description
of the influence of the sea as the combining and umtmg
element ; we have diewn how this infltlence was eX;teBded
by the navigation of the Phoenieians, Garthaginians,
Tyrrhenians, and Tuscans; and how the Greeks, luwing
their naval power strengthened by numerous eoloniesj
advanced from the Basin of the Mediterranean towards the
east and the west, by the Ai^nauts from lolchos and by the
Samian Golaeus; and how towards the south the expedi-^
tions of Solomon and Hiram passing through the Bed Sea,
visited the distant Gold lands in voyages to Ophir. Tha
preset section will conduct us prindpally into the interior
of a great continent on paths opened by land traffic and by^
nver navigation. In the short interval of twelve yearsr
liiere followed successively, the expeditions into Western
Asia and Sjnna, with the battles of the Granicus and of the
passes of the Issus; the siege and taking of l^e; the easy
possession of Egypt ; the Babylonian and Persian campaign,,
in which at Arbela (in the plain of Gaugamda) tha

152 EPOCHS IK THE HISFOUT 09 THE COKTKUPIATIOK

ivorld-domimon of the Achseinenides was aimihilated; the:
eipedition to Bactna and Sogdiana, between the Hindoo.
Coosh and the Jaxartes (Syr); and^ lastly^ the daring
advance into the conntry of the five rivers (Pentapotamia) of
Western India. Alexander planted Greek settlements ahnost
every where^ and diffosed Grecian manners over the immense
region extending from the temple of Ammon in the
Lybian Oasis^ and firom Aletandria on the western Delta
qI the Nile, to the Northern Alexandria on the Jaxartes^
the present Eodjend in Fergana,

The extension of the new field opened to consideration
—and this is the point of view from which we must
regard the enterprises of the Macedonian conqueror and
the continuance of the Bactrian Empire, — ^proceeded from'
the large geographical space made known, and the diversity
ot climates, from Cyropolis on the Jaxartes in the
latitude of Tiffis and Bome, to the eastern Delta of the
Indus, near Tira, under the tropic of Cancer. Let us add
the wonderful variety in the character and elevation of
the ground, including rich and fruitful lands, desert wastes,
and snowy mountains; the noveliy and gigantic size of the
productions of the animal and vegetable kingdoms; the
aspect and geographical distribution of races of men differ-
ing in colour; the living contact with the nations of the
East, highly gifted in some respects, enjoying a civiliza-
tion of high antiquity, with their religious myths, their
systems of philosophy, their astronomical knowledge, and
their astrological phantasies. At no other epoch (with the
exception, eighteen centuries and a half later, of the dis-
covery and opening of tropical America), was there offered,
at one time and to one part of the human race; a greater

OF 1HB VMVEBSEn OONQmSSlS 07 ALEXANBSR. 153

influx of new views of natuie, and more abundant materials r
for the foundation of physical geography and comparatiye.
ethnological studies. The vividness of the impression
produced thereby is testified by the whole of western-
literature; it is testified even by the doubts (always
attendant on what speaks to our imagination in the
description of scenes of nature)^ which the accounts (^
Megasthenes^ Nearchus^ Aristobulus^ and other followers*
of Alexander^ raised in the minds of Greek and subsequently .
of Boman writers. Those narrators^ subject to the colour- >
ing and influence of the period in which they Hved, and
constantly mixing up facts and individual opinions or con*'
lectures^ have experienced the changeful fate of all travellers^ >
from bitter blame at first to sub^quent milder criticism-
and justification. The latter has especially prevailed in our
days, when a deep study of Sanscrit, a more general
knowledge of native geographical names, Bactrian coins
discovered in Topes, and above all the immediate view of.
the country itself and of its organic productions, have
furnished to critics elements which were wanting to the/
partial knowledge of Eratosthenes so frequent in censure, ^
of Strabo, and of Pliny (^i^).

If we compare in difierence of longitude the length of
the Mediterranean with the distance &om west to east-
which divides Asia Minor from tibie shores of the Hyphasis >
(Beas), and from the *^ Altars of Eetum,^^ we perceive that :
the geography of the Greeks was doubled in the course
of a few years. . In orcler to indicate more particularly the-
character of that which I have termed the rich increase of
materials for physical geography and natural knowledge^
dbtidned by the expeditions of Alexander, I would;

Xi4t SP00H9 DV 9^ VfSffOBT ^ff THE fXfSTBMVLAltOff

nkt ftrst to the lenuricaUe divendty presented hf •
the earth's sni&car In the oonntries whidi the army* '
traversed^ low lancbr^ — desert's devoid of vegetatioii or sail
steppes, (as on the north of the Asf emh cham wUeh: is a
<xmt!nna.tioii of the Tiaii-scJia!D)/-Hnid the ftmr large, ealtf-
v»ted, and rich aDnvial districts of the EnphrateSy the
Indus, the Oxos, and &e 7«x»rtes, — contrasted wiA
enowj mountains of nearlj 20,000 feet of elevation. The
Hindoo Coosh, or In£an Caaeasus of the Maoedomans, is
ft continuation of tile Kuen4tan of North lM)efc, and in
its farther estension towards Ha*at, on the west ef Ite '
transverse north and soutii chain of BoIcmt, it divides into two
great chains boimding Kefiristan (^, t&e southern of
which is the loftiest and most important* Alexander
passed over the j^ateau of Bamian, which has morethaa
8000 feet of elevation, and in which the cave of'
Prometheus was supposed to be seen (^i), gained the
crest of Eohibaba, and passed ovorKabura, and along the
ODurse of the Ghoes to cress the Indus above the preset
Attock. The Hindoo Goosh, crowned with eternal snow,
which, according to Bumes, begins near Bamian sA an
elevation of 12,200 French feet, must, when compared with
the humbler heighib of the Taurus to which the Gre^
were accustomed, have given to them occasion to reoognne
on a more colossal scale the superposition of different<
SBones of climate and v^etation« That which elemen*
taiy nature displays thus visibly, when presented to the
senses of men produces in susosptiUe minds- a deep and
lasting effect. Strabo gives a highly graphio des(8riptbn
of. the passage over the meuntaineufl land of the Piuo- -
paoisadse, where the- aimy opened tea itself witti tdl^

OF THB UNIVES&B. ODNQTTESrS 09 ALEXAKDEK* }5S

a passive through the snow^ and where all arborescent
v«?getation ceases (222).

The dwellers in the west received through the
Macedonian settlements accurate accounts of Indian pro*
ductions of nature and of art^ of which little more than
the names were previously known by reports derived
either through more ancient commercial connections^ or
through Ctesias of Cnidos who had lived for seventeen
years at the Persian court as the physician of Artaxerxesi
Mnemon. Such were the watered noe fields^ of the
cultivation of which Aristobulus gave a particular account ;
the cotton shrub and the fine tissues and paper (223)
for which it fumii^hed the materials; spices and opium;
wine made &om rice^ and from the juice of pahns^ the
Sanscrit name of which^ tala, has been preserved .by
Arrian (22*); sugar from the sugar-cane (225), which,
indeed, is often confounded by the Greek and Boman
imters with the Tabaschir of bamboo stems ; wool &om
the great Sombax trees (226) » shawls from the wool of the
Thibetian goat ; silken (Serie) tissues (227) • oil of white
gesamum (Sanscrit, tila) ; oil of roses and other perfumes;:
lac (Sanscrit, lakscha, and in the vulgar tongue, lakkha)
(228) ; and, lastly, the hardened Indian wootz steel.

Besides the knowledge of these productions, which
soon became the objects of an extensive commerce,
and of which several were transplanted into Arabia by
the SdeucidfiB (229)^ the aspect of nature in these richly
adorned subtropical regions propored for the Greeks
enjoyments of a different kind. Gigantic forms of
plants and animals never before seen filled the imagina*'
tion with exciting imagery. Writers from whose severe

VOL. n. M

28( WQQBS IN JTIDB HWmiBT DP THBOOnffBUBLATmr

iad iKaientific sfyle anj degree of ioBpiietiaa is «ke«
where entirely absent, become poetieal witen descfibi]!^
tile habits of Vke dflphaot^'^ihe height of the ixees^
''to the sammit of which an arronr taxmot lea^, and
whose leares ase broader thim the shieldB of infantiy^''-^^
the bamboo, n Hght^ feathery, arboorescent grass, ''dF
which emgk joinis (iniemodia) semred as {our-oaied
boate^ — «nd the Radian fig4fee, whose pendant braadio
tok^ T06t arouad the parent «iem, which attains a diameter
cf -28 feet, '^ fanning,'' ae OnesierituB es^esses hmadf
with grBat^imth to natore, '' a leafy ctsaoipj siixdlar te ■%
mimy-piUared tent.^ The tree^em, which aeeordii^ 4o
zoy feelings is *&e greatest ornament of Ifhe tropies, is
never mentioned by Alexander's ^onqpanioiis (^o) ; %fft
ih^ speak of the magnificent &ai-tike nmbrella pdhaei,
and of the delicate «nd ever firerii green of the cnltv^atel
baamnft {^^y»

Howcfcff the fint tone the knowledge of a large part -rf
tire earth's «iaface was -trdy opened. The wcarld of objeefts
eame forward with p*eponderatiQg power to mieet ihd ef
snbjeotive creakion; and while the 'Grecian language wA
literatui^, and their dEertilisiDg influx on the human miiBi,
were widely diffiised through ihs medium of AJiexaodei's
cdniquests, atihe same time scientific observation and fte
sjpstematic avaSment of the knewledge.obtained, were brought
into clear Ught iby theieachxng and^Lample of Amstotie (^^
We toudi here 4m the happy eoincidence by yrbkk, 0t the
VBiy same epoch when tiaere ma suddenly oflfered so im-
mense a 8up{% uf new materials of 'huanaii laiowledge^
thebr so^ordinatioa and inteyeetud wrailmeiit were facdU
tated and midtipiifta,^thBaugh the sew dindtkoi given Igr

OF TEE TINIYBB8S. OONCllTiiBSTB OV MiEXAKDXB. 167

fbe :8tagiiii» to the enapirioal ssseareh of fiicts in tbe
daoHim of atattuse^ to the workiiigs of the mind mhai
phaaiging into the depths of apecuktioi^ and to the foi-i
lOfstBem of B scientific Um^age^ by which eveiythi^
m^j be accixrotely defined. Thus Anstotle zezofiin^ for
thoiwandfi of yeans ;to com^ accofdingto Dante^s fineioB*.
•pt&mmg '^il maestro di eolor che eanno^' ^)*
. The belief in an immediate enrichaient of Aristotle's zoo*
kgjcal. knowledge by the campaigns of Alexander has been
nandered vety nncertain, if not entirely dissipated by ro»
dent and very careful researches. The miseNible compib*
tion of a li& of the Stagirite, which was long ascribed %^
Ammoninathe son of Hermiaa, has ^yai jase^ amoiag buho^
other hifitoxioal errors (^^)^ to that of the philosopher havinjf
aocompanied his pu^ .at least as far as the banks of the
Kile(^^). The great work on animak appears to \xmt been
of vei^ little ilateir date than the Meteorologicqi, and the
kito is shewn by internal evidenjce(^^) to belgsig either to
tbe 106th cor at the .utmost to the 111th Olympiad; there-
fosre, either fourtem yeairs before Aristotle came to the cenit
of Philip^ or, at the latest, three jears before the passd^ of
iibe Granieus. Some particular notiees contained dn the
nine boolcis of the history of amnials^ have indeed been
bir0aght forward in oppontion to the view heire taken «{
&f!r psrly ojmpJ^fcim^ .pwtiauUtrly the ^exact .ktiowledfaa
whioh Aristotle appears to have had of tibe el^ant^ of the
bearded horse^stag (Mppekiphos), ^i the Badxian camel
with two hflaqpa, of the hqpa'dion eni^osed to be tha
hnating tiger (Gn^pard}^ taid of £he Indian buffalo whndi
was first b90i)ght ito MiWNSgb at the itime of dhe Ousadas,.
It should .bfe lemaideedj aowiwer. that the native ^place of tho

158 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE OONTBin^IATIOlf

remarkable large stag with the horse's mane^ which Diard
and Duvaucel sent from Eastern India to Cuvier, (and to
which Cttvier gave the name of Cervus aristotelis) is, accord«
ing to the Stagirite's own notice, not the Indian Penta-
potamia traversed by Alexander, but Arachosia, a conntrr
west of Candahar, which together with Gedrosia formed an
ancient Persian Satrapy (^^). May not the notices, mostly
so brief, on the forms and habits of the above named ani-
mals, have been derived by Aristotle from information ob-
tained by him, quite independently of the Macedonian
expeditions, from Persia and from Babylon, the centre of
such widely extended trading intercourse ? It should be
remembered that when preparations by means of alcohol (t^
were wholly unknown, it was only skins and bones, and not
the soft parts susceptible of dissection, which under any
circumstances could be sent from remote parts of Asia to
Greece. Probable as it is that Aristotle received both from
Philip and Alexander the most Kberal support in the prose-
cution of his studies in physics and in natural history, — ^m
procuring immense zoological materials from the whole of
Greece and from the Grecian seas, and even in laying the
grounds of a collection of books unique for the period, and
whicli passed afterwards to Theophrastus and subse-
quently to Neleus of Scepsis, — ^yet we must regard the
Stories of presents of eight hundred talents, and the " main,
tenance of many thousands of collectors, overseers of fish-
ponds, and bird-keepers'' as exaggerations of alaterperiod(t^^
or as traditions misunderstood by Pliny, Athenseus, and ^Elian.
The Macedonian expedition, which opened so large and
feir a portion of the earth's surface to a single nation of
such high intellect and cultivation, may therefore be regarded

OV THE tmiVEBSlU OOKQTJESIS OV ALBXAMDEB. 169

in the strictest sense of the tenn as a scientific expedition;
paii, indeed^ as the first in which a conqueror snrroonded
himself with learned men of all departments of knowledge —
Xiatnralists^ historians^ philosophers^ and artists. We should
attribute to Aristotle not only that which he himself pro-
dnoed; — ^he acted also through the intelligent men of
liis school who accompanied the army. Amongst these
shone pre-eminently the near relation of the Stagirite^ Callis«
Hienes of Olynthus^ who, even previous to the Asiatic
campaigns, had been the author of botanical works, and of
a dehcate anatomical examination of the eye. The grave
severity of his manners, and the unmeasured freedom of his
language, rendered him hateful both to the flatterers, and to
tbe monarch himself already fallen firom his higher thoughts
and nobler dispositions. Callisthenes unshrinkingly pre-
ferred Uberty to life ; and when in Sactra he was implicated,
thou^ guiltless, in the conspiracy of Hermolaus and the
pages, he became the unhappy occasion of Alexander's
exasperation against his former teacher. Theophrastus, the
genuine friend and fellow disciple of Callisthenes, uprightly
and worthily undertook his defence after his fall. From Aris«*
totle we only know that before Callisthenes' departure, the
Stagirite recommended to him prudence ; and apparently well
tersed in the knowledge of courts by his long sojourn at
that of Philip of Macedon, advised him to " speak with the
king as little as possible, and if it must be, always in agree^
ment with him'' (2*0),

Callisthenes, as a philosopher familiar with the study of
nature before leaving Greece, and supported by chosen men
of the school of Aristotle, directed to hi^er views the
researches of his companions in the new and wider sphere

169 3M)0QB.« Of .T9B BUKOBY OF TJEB. OOanCBBOSBASBDN

of inarostigatioai mm c^eaed. to them. It iwa not onljl tiv
jpodep foima of the aaimal. Tringfloni^ the hiynwanre ^
!Rfig0tBi3on> the. V8rifition» of the sQj&^e^ aad the penodkul
jHReUing. of the great wren- which anested his atteatioft ^<—
man and his varieties) mik their many gradatioBfl of feiai
«ad ooloiup> ooold* laoi but appeaf^ in accordance: with.Aori^
teik^s own sej[iiig(^^^)^ as ^Hhe, GfiDtw andobjeei a£ tt»
shxile creation^ the eooa^ona poflieaeior of thoughtrdttimil
tosttk the divdne aoucee of thought/^ Irom ther ]siA
tiial.iomains to ua of. the aeoaiinta<)I.Oiiiee»0ritud (nuii^eeBK
•Bsed hy the aiiciefits)^, we taee that in the Maoed^an
expedition gneat: mafimi& waa felt, whea im adj^aaoi^' lat
tomuds. the eaat^.tiie^ Indian saees spoken of by H^eodatuK
f^'dai^. ooloiKDed aad. JseseeafaliBg^ Ethiopiane/' wei^ indoni
met, with ;. Imb the AMcan negro with cutlj- haiiv. tm
not fQuad{^^^)'. The inflnc^ee of the:atmosp]iere: on celoait
aod the diSkeat, effects of dry and- huiaiid. wiaaaithy iwA
eMsefoUy- noticed^ In the- eady Hooierio timea^ aad ion. a
)(»iig;subae(p8nt. period, the dependence of ihetempeeatinBief
the air on latitude was completely overlooked. Sasteaaaad
It^stein' selationa deteimined the whole thenme meteosdlig;^
of: the Gred&Sk. The paxta of the earth towards the auaifrisiaf
veie regaidedaa near to the smi, on "swa. laade**' '* The*€M
in Usi course ooloajps- the akin of man with- a darit aeelf
lustre^ and. pacehea and curk his hair'^ (^^).
. The oampaignfl of Alexander fiest afforded an ^fOKhmitffi
of comparing on a large scale the Afiriottt raees> asteulaM
vi^SgSl^ eqUBciaHy^ ynAh Arian raoes: beyond fhe.TI^^,iiid
«^- tiie vecy dark oolouired^ but net: woolly hauTod^^ Indttt
aborigjnen. The^ subdivision of mankind ioioi vaia^eaf aoid.

tfafiir. diatcibutum* ovei^ the.eai:;th'& suc&Gfl^, (ther sasuUrsatiifift

^ bifii^cal eveixb tttBii of^ a long eostumance of oli«
9itia inflxieaoeGi^ Whea^ tha iype» have been once firmlf
ostablid^) and: the e/gigsmsD^ coixktidiction between coloor
«id situation^ miwt'hBRr» airakaeied the liyeliest interest hr
thoto^itf iiL obsenp^f. We BtiH find in the interior of India
$a extendre tcofntoiif pooj^d hy v&y daxk oolbured^ aloog^
!itidc^.aboi%iml> kihatitartb^ qndedistinct from the Hgfator
iiflkixa^BSiiiila^ To these belong

wmmg tfae ^mdt^ittllone} Ae (i(»idB»^ lie Bfaiihs (Mieelfa^'
JDi^tii&foxert*a^wn)d moiQittain ef IkCdiraraEDd Gnaeratr^ and
ttiaSioliffof Omsoi^ Tho" atnie KaaseDr eosflidera itpro^
Urift tifltcia tte timeof Hesodotbs^ th« bhick Asiatic nec^
--hIni '^EtMoi^iiiiiii rf ^ snaMJahig/'' resembling tite
jb3nfaiw.]!i^(]9ttai#]&>&e oolonrof thea^ bat not in the
foaiibf. of- Urn hni^—eitaided^ much' farther towards the
maiibitmesAi^ksm^9ii jlrtaant-^). Tttns also in tihe ancient
S^ftiaBthxDgdom^ tb&hs^itliticm&oftixe true woolly-haired,
ofiKSKttBfMsad Niegio^ uaoes esiended &r into northenr

3&iei«9ilMgaHBiit^'0fitho sphere of iSeas; which arose from
tita: aspM^ €ff many new physical phsBiromena, as wdl as from
oonteolf 'witil' dif^e^oifr raees of men and with their ciVili*
satinn a»^ tber oonlxBBfcs' whii^- it presented, was nnfortu^
irately no* aceoBapaaned By ifier frmta of an ethnological*
CBEBipaaiseir of Ik^Qagesj either philosopEieal, regard-
ing i^e fimdamentd refirtions of ideas (^, — or simply
hMaiimf ^Wttet we- cafl dassical' atrtiquity was wholly
a stranger to this class of investigations. On the other
linRi^ tbe»* ezpdBiibns' of Alexander oSbied to the 6i:eeks
mmHAa mateidir thMenr fitrm the long accumulated
tiOBBcixeei eF more andfenlfy cultivatecb nations. What T

162 S?00H3 IN THE HISTOEY 07 THB OONT£HFX>AfIOK

would more especially refer to is the fact that^ with an
increased knowledge of the earth and its productions^ we
iSnd by recent and careful investigations that the Greeks
obtained from Babylon an important augmeotatiiou of iheir
knowledge of the heavens. The conquest of Qyms had in-
deed already caused the downfal of the glories of the Astro*
nomical CoUege of priests in the capital of the eastern world t
the terraced pyramid of BeluSj, (at <»ice a temple^ a Umb^
and an astronomical observatory whence the nocturaal
hours were proclaimed)^ had been given over to destruction
by Xerxes^ and already lay in ruins when the Maoedoniflais
came. But the very fact of the close sacerdotal c^ste
being dissolved^ and of xnany a^onomical, schools having
formed themselves (^^^)j rendered it possible for GaUisthenes
to send to Greece, (by the advice of Aristotle according io
Simplicius), observations of stars for a very long period^
Porphyry says for a period of 1903 years before Alexander'*
entryintoBabylon, 01. 112,2. The oldest Chaldeaaobse^w^•
tions referred to in the Almagest, (probably the oldest which
Ptolemy found suitable for his objects) go back indeed only
to 721 years before our era, or to the first Messenian Ww.
It is certain that ^' the Chaldeans kne\7 the mean motioB»
of the moon with an exactness which caused the Greek •
astronomers to employ them for the foundation pf the theoiy
of the moon (248)." Their planetary observations^ to which
they were stimulated by the old love of astrology, appear-
also to have been used for the construction of astronomical
tables.

Tliis is not the place to examine how much of the earliest
Pythagorean views of the true fabric of the heavens, of thft
course of the planets, and of that of comets which accord*

01 THJ5 tWtTBESK, CONQUESTS OP ALEXANBEB. 163

fag to Apollomtis Myndius (249) return in long regulated
paths, belonged to the Chaldeans ; Strabo calls the '^ mathe-
matician Seleucus*' a Babylonian, and distinguishes him
from the Erythrean who measured the tide of the sea. (^w)
It is sufficient to remark as highly probable that the
Greek Zodiac is borrowed from the Dodecatemoria of the
CSialdeans^ and according to Letronne's important investi-
gations does not go back farther than to the beginning of
the sixth century before our era (^i).

The immediate results of the contact of the Greeks with
the nations of Indian origin, at the period of the Macedonian
oampaigns^ are wrapped in much obscurity. In science,
little was probably gained; as after traversing the kingdom
of Poms, between the cedar fringed (252) Hydasp«« ( Jelum),
and the Acesines (Tschinab), Alexander only advanced in the
iPentapotamia (the Pantschanada), as far as the Hyphasis,—
below the junction, however^^ of that river, with its tributary
the Satadru, the Hesidrus of Pliny. Distrust of his
soldiers, and uneasiness respecting a dreaded general insur-
rection in the Persian and Syrian provinces, forced the
warrior king, who would fain have advanced to the Ganges,
to the great catastrophe of his return. The countries passed
through by the Macedonians were inhabited by very im-
perfectly civilised races. In the space between the Satadru
and the Tamuna (the region of the Indus and the Ganges),
the sacred Sarasvati, an inconsiderable stream> forms a
classic boundary of the highest antiquity between the "pure,
worthy, pious'* worshippers of Brahma on the East, and the
*^ impure, kingless'^ tribes, not divided into castes, on the
^est(2«3). Alexander* therefore, did not reach the proper

I64i BffoOHa m ssb hibtobt ow the contehplatiow

« fc

ieai ©f the liigker Indian civilisation* Seleucus- Nicatoij

tte founder of ihe great empire of the Seleuddse, was HEm

fiijbt who advanced fraiD. Babylon towards the Granges^ and

tep* the- repeated' missions of STegasthenes to Pat&Kputra (®*)

tfliinectfed himself by politicaT relations with the £0werftd

Sendraeottua (Chandragapta)'.

' Thus fizsfr asose* an animated -and lasting contact witfi

the eivilised: parts of the Madhya-dtssa (*^lhe central land"^

There were indeed in the Pendschab (Piaijanb, or Pentapa*

temia^learasd. Brahmins living asherinits. Wedonotknow,

hmeiver, wh^her those Btohmins and Gynmosophists were

^0qpikaijitect wiiii tide fine Indian system of numbers, inwltic&

•• hw characters receive their value merely by '^gosf-

iiBm;"' nw aw we. even G»tain whether at that^ period* the

BBffthod of as^ning- value by position was tnown even ih

iher most cultivated parts of India, aliiiough it is highlj

pobaJble thatsnch. was tfiexase. What a revolution would

feanre beam effected in* the more rapiff development of

jiia&emaiti)eaLlaiowMge> and^ iii the facilities of its app]>

flatton^if theBfiahmittSphihes (called' by Hre Greeks Calanos)

yfbQ: aceompsmiad' Ale:seaider'd army;- — or at a later period,

faj tihie tinie^ at Augusts, the Brahmin Bargosa, — ^before

thejT^^olunttoily aseended' the funeral pile at Susa and af

Atitiens,. had been> able to communicate liie knowledge of

iM' Bxdiaa systiem of numbers to* l^e' Greeks, so that

it wigtdi hare been brought into general' use !' The acutie

Q&di comprehensive leseorehes of Ghasles Have indeed shewn,

that; what is- called the me^od: of the Pythagorean Abacus

arAlgoriamaiS) as we fiaidit deseribed in Bbetiiius' Geo-

VKBkofy k ahoosi id^ntieal' with the position-vaike of the

OP THE IWIVEESB. COITOVESTS OF ALEXANDER. 165

Indian system ; but that method^ long unfruitful with the
Greeks and Eomans^ . first obtained general extension in
the middle ages^ especially after the zero sign had super-
seded the vacant space. The most beneficial discoveries
oftoi require oentunesfor their xeoognstbu and c«iB|iletttiii.

100

1P00B8 Cr THX HISTOAT OF THE COVTBItPX.ATION OF TBI
UNIYESSE. EPOCH OF THE PTOLEHTEiS.

in.

Progress of the contemplation of the Unirerae irnder thePtolemies-**
Museum at Serapeum.— Peooiiar character of the scientifb
direction of the period. — Enc;fdopedic learning. — Generalisar
tion of the views of nature regarding both the earth and the
regions of space.

After the dissolution of the great Macedonian Empii«
comprising territories in the three Continents, the germs
which the uniting and combining system of the government
of Alexander had deposited in a fruitful soil, began to devekqi
themselves every where, although with much diversity of
fonn. In proportion as the national exclusiveness of the
Hellenic character of thought vanished, and its creative
inspiring power was less strikingly characterised by depth
and intensity, increasing progress was made in the
knowledge of the connection of phenomena, by a more
animated and more extensive intercourse between nation^
as well as by a generalisation of the views of Nature based
on argumentative considerations. In the Syrian kii^gdon^
by the Attalidse of Pergamos, and under the Seleacidffi
and the Ptolemies, this progress was favoured and promoted
every where and almost at the same time by distinguished
eovereigns. Grecian Egypt enjoyed the advantage of poll*

i

SPOCH OF THE PTOLEiaJSS* 167

tical nniij^ as well as that of geographical position; thd
influx of the Bed Sea through the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb
to Suez and Akaba, (occupying one of the SSE.-NNW»
fissures, of which I have elsewhere spoken), {^^), bringing
the traffic and intercourse of the Indian Ocean witliin a
few miles of the coasts of the Mediterranean,

The kingdom of the Seleucidse did not enjoy the advan« *
tages of sea traffic, which the distribution of land and water,
and the configuration of the coast line, offered to that of the
Lagidse ; and its stability was endangered by the divisions
produced by the diversity of the nations of which the different
Satrapies were composed. The intercourse and traffic enjoyed
by the kingdom of the Seleucidse was mostly an inland one,
confined either to the course of rivers, or to caravan tracks,
which braved every natural obstacle, — snowy mountain
chains^ lofty plateaus, and deserts. The great caravan
coEveying merchandise, of which silk wa§ the most valuable
article, travelled from the interior of Asia, from the highi
plain of the Seres north of Ilttara-kuru, by the ''stone
tower" (256) (probably a fortified Caravanserai) south of
the sources of the Ja&artes, to the vaUey of the Qxus, and
to the Caspian and Black Seas. In the kingdom of the
Iiagidae, on the other hand, animated as was the river navi-
gation of the Nile, and the communication between its banks
aaftd the artificial roads along the shores of the Bed Sea,, the
{ffincipaltraffio was, nevertheless, in the strictest sense of the
word^ a sea traffic* In the grand views formed by Alexander,
the newly founded Egyptian Alexandria in the West, and
the very ancient City of Babylon in the East, were designed •
to be the two metropolitan cities of the Macedonian universal
empire; Babylon, however, never in later times fulfilled

IW" EPOCHS IN TBEmSS&mOV TBBtlOWrEMPLATION

thffaeMpeetetioiis^imatbefl of Selew»,

foimdedVb^ Seleacus Kicator on;the iow«r ISgris^ «iid luttfcfli
uBiRi the EupliTdiies by meaBB of ranals (^); cNmtiAHtel
to its 6oini^ete decline.

. Three gpeot rulers^ the thx^e first Ptolemies^ whose TOgn
occupied a whole oentuiy, by tiieir love of the sdeaiMSj bf
tfaeiT farilliant institutians for ike promotioii of intdlastaal
GEdtiystKm, and by their muntemipted endeaveuBs 1;o prtonofte
and extend commerce^ caused the knowledge 'Of 19'atisre mit
of distant eounkieB to Teceke a greater and mone nfii
increase than had yet been achieved 'by any single radnon.
This iareasnre of trae scientifio cultivation passed from ike
Qieeks settled in Egypt io {he lUxmans. Even nndor
Ptdlrany Philadelphus, hardly haff a centaiy after the ^eofli
of Alexander, and before *he first Punic war 'had shabBii
the flxidtooratic republic of Carthage, Alexnadm 'was ftd
pott of greatest eammeree inihe wotlL The 'Bearest vbA
most commodiois 'route 'from the bashi of tlie MediteN
ixnean to South Eastern Africa, Arabia «nd Ijvfia.^ was bj
Alexandria. The IjagidGeovoikdlihenBdhres with unexanqfM
success of the road which Ikture had «s itwere madded oiit
fcriihe commerce <tf the world by tho flireotion of the Sei
Sea or Arabian Gulf p«) ,' — ^a jroitte vAMi will never be
&Ity appreciated until the^wildness of Eastern life, and -fin
ieabnsies of £be ^Wisstsni f^sr^ss, '^laS. W& ^iad^iiAi
Even when Egypt became b fiomsn pioiwee) it ceiittiRffii
to be the «eat of almost iboa&dless riches ; the imsreoflii^
lumry of ISomeTmdcrtheCtesow reacted on 'Ae knd 'uf
liie !Sf&d, and soo^ tiie meases of its saitisfa^on primnpAf
Bi ihe amivessiii 'oommeiee ef AleKandria.
Hbe inqiotftant ^skeasioii of (the teoWkdge xSThttae vni

,OF fmE rUNiVBitai:. — ^bpooh of the ftolibiibb. IVB

of difEeFent cQuntsies unoter the liagidas/was derived from
«the^camvaii traffic in tbe interior of Africa by Ojrene and
the Oases j from the conquests in Ethiopia oiid Arabia Fdk
under Ptokmy Euergetes ; and from commerce by sea inth
tiie whole Western Peninsula of India^ from the Gulf cif
Baiygaza (Guzerat and Cambay), along the coasts of Canorft
and Malabar ^Malaya-vara^ territory of Mabija)^ to Urn
Biahminical Sanctuaries of Cape Comorin (Kumari)^ C^^)
and to the gfeat Island of Ceylon^ (Lanka in the Bama*
yaaa^ iuad called by Alexander's coten^oiaries Tsprobam
Igr the mutilation of a native name). {^^) An important
advance in uautioal knowledge had previously been obtained^
by 'the laborious five mcmths' ^voyage of ISTearchus along the
coaats of Gedrosia and Garamania^ between Pattala at the.
mottih of the Indus and the mouHis of the Euphrates.

Aiezander's con^panions were not ignorant of the existence
«if the periodieal winds or monsoons^ which favoier m
materially the naivigation between the East coast of Africa
and the North and West coasts of India. At the end df
ten miontha spent by the Maeedoniaais in navigating and
examindng the Indus- between STicea on tibe Hydaspes imd
Pattala, with the view df opening thai river to the oommeiee
of the worlds N^orchus hastened at'tiie beginning of October
(QL 113^ S) to saQ away from the mouth of the Indus 'Ot
Stuxa, because he knew that his voyage io the Persian QvS
iQbng « coast running on a {larallel of latitude^ irould be
favOHUsd by the J^orth East and East moiraoon. The farther
knowledge acqnixed by experience of i^ ranarkable lecffl
law of i^e direction of the wind^ «ul3sequently emboldened
nsv^gators sailing fromOcelis in the iStraits of Bcfb^el-Mand^
;to Jiold a direct course aoroas the tipen sea to Muziris^ tba

170 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOBY 09 THE CONTEKPLAinOir

great mart on the Malabar coast (south of Mangalor),
to which internal traffic brought articles of commerce from'
the Eastern coast of the Indian Peninsula^ and even gold
from the remote Chrysa {Borneo ?) . The honour of being the
IGlrst to apply this new system of Indian navigation is ascribed
to an otherwise unknown mariner^ Hippalus ; and even the
precise period at which he lived is doubtful, (^^i)

Whatever brings nations together, and by rendering largo
portions of the Earth more accessible^ enlarges the sphere
of men^s knowledge, belongs to the •history of the contempla-
tion of the Universe. The opening of a water communication
between the Bed Sea and the Mediterranean by means of
the Nile, holds an important place in this respect. At the
part where a slender line of junction barely unites the two
continents, and which offers the deepest maritime inlets, the
excavation of a canal had been commenced, not indeed by
the great Sesostris (Bamses Miamoun) to whom Aristotle
and Strabo ascribe it, but by Nechos (Neku), who, however,
was deterred by oracles given by the priests from prosecuting
the undertaking. Herodotus saw and described a finished
canal, which entered the Nile somewhere above Bubastis,
and was the work of the Achsemenian, Darius Hystaspes.
Ptolemy Philaddphus restored this canal which had fallen
into decay, in so complete a manner, that although (notwith-
standing a skilfrQ arrangement of locks and sluices) it wad
not navigable at all seasons of the year, it long ftidcd and
greatly promoted traffic with Ethiopia, Arabia, and India,
continuing to do so under the Boman sway as late as the
reign of Marcus Aurelius, and perhaps even as late ai
that of Septimius Severus, a period of four centuries and
a half. With a similar purpose of encouraging intei*
course by means of the Bed Sea, harbour works were wduc

OF IHB UNIYSfiSE. — EPOCK 09 THX FEOLSKIES. 171

looaly carried on at Myos Hocmos and Berenicej and wero
0(»mect6d viUi Goptos by the fonoation of an excellent
artificial road. {^^) AH these different enterprises of tb#
Lagidae^ conunercial as well as scientific, were based on the
idea of connection and union, on a ceaseless tendency to
embrace a wider whole, remote distances, larger masses^ .^
more extensive and varied relations, and greater and more .
Bumerons objects of contanplation. This direction of the
Hellenic mind, so fruitful in results, had been long preparing
in silence, and became manifested on a great scale in the
expeditions of Alexander, in his endeavours to blend th|»
Western and Eastern worlds. In its ccmtinued extension
under the Lagidae it charactmsed the epoch which I here
desire to pourtray, and must be r^arded as having effected
an important advance in the progressive leeogniiion and
knowledge of the Universe as a whole.

So far as an abundant supply of objects of direct conr
templafcion is required for this increasing and advancing
knowledge, the frequent intercourse of Ilgypt with distaiit
countries, scientific exploring joumjes into Ethiopia ut the
cost of the Government, {^^^) distant ostdch and elephant
liants, (2^) uid menagerii^ of wild and rai« beasts in the
^^ kings' houses of BruchiuiKi,'' might act as incitements to .
the study of natural history (2^^) and contribute data to •
empirical knowledge ; but ^e peculiar ciharacto of the
Ptolemaic epoch, as well as of the whole '^Alexandrian
School,'' which, indeed, preserved the same direo^n until
the third and fourth centuriesi maniliested itself in a differeial;
path ; it occupied itsdf less with the immediate cbservatioa
of particulars, than with the laborious assanblage of all that
vas already obtained, and m the axrai^eanein^ oompacisai^

VOL. II. N

J

172 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOEl OF THIS CO>'TBMPLATIOK

and ihtdlectual £ractification of that whieh had long been
collected. During the long period of many centuries, and
until the powerful genius of Aristotle appeared, natural
phenomena, not regarded as objects of accurate observation,
•were subjected in their interpretation to the exclusive sove-
reignty of ideas, and even given over to the sway of vague
5)resentiments and unstable hypotheses. There was now,
however, manifested a higher appreciation of empirical know-
ledge. Men examined and sifted what they possessed.
jN^atural philosophy becoming less bold in her speculatiom
end less fanciful in her images, at length approached nearer
io a searching empirical investigation in treading the sure
path of induction. A laborious tendency to accumulate
materials had enforced the acquisition of a corresponding
'©mount of technical information; and although in the
works of distinguished and thoughtful men, an extensive
•and varied knowledge presented valuable results, yet in the
decline of the creative power of the Greek mind this know-
ledge appeared too often to want an animating spirit, and
wore the character of mere erudition. The absence of due
care in respect to composition, as well as want of animation and
grace of style, have also^ contributed to expose Alexandrian
learning to the severe censure of posterity.

It particularly belongs to these pages to bring forward
that which the epoch of the Ptolemies contributed towards
the contemplation of the physical Universe, whether by the
concurrent action of external relations, by the foundation
«nd suitable endowment of two great establishments (the
Alexandrian Institution, and the libraries of Bruchiam
{^^) and Ehakotis), or by the collegiate assemblage of 490
many leamed men of active and practical minds. An <a-

'oif rrHB umvzBSB. — bpooh of thb ffolskib9« 17S

dydopeedic knowledge was favourable to the comparison of
file results of observation^ and thus tended to facilitate
generalisations in the view of Nature. The great scientific
Institution which owed its origin to the two first Ptolemies,
long maintained amongst other privileges that of ii» members
bemg free to labour in wholly different directions (^^) ; and
thus, although settled in a foreign country, and surrounded
by men of many different races and nations, they preserved
the peouUar Hellenic character of ttiought, and the acute
HeUenic ingenuity.

In accordance with the spirit and form of the present
historic representation, a few examples may suffice to shew
the manner in which, under the protecting influence of the
Ptolemies, observation and experiment assumed their ap-
propriate places, as the true sources of knowledge re-
specting the heavens and the earth; and how, in the
Alexandrian p^od, in combination with a diligent ac-
cumulation of the mere materials of knowledge, a happy
tendency to generalisation was also at all times manifested.
Although the different Greek schools of philosophy trans-
planted to. Lower Egypt did not escape a certain degree cl
Oriental degeneracy, and gave occasion to many mythical in-»
terpretations of Nature and of physical phenomena, yet in the
Alexandrian school the Platonic doctrines {^^) still remained
as the most secure support of- mathematical knowledge*
The progressive advances made in this knowledge embraced
almost at the same time pure mathematics, mechanics and
astronomy. In Plato's high esteem for mathematical de»
Velopment of thought, as well as in Aristotle's morphological
riews emEhrafang all organic bein^, were contained the germs
ol aU lat^ advances in natiual sdenoe; they became tb^

174i JESfOQBS m THE HISTOBY OF THE OONTEMEnATlO:^

guiding stars wUch conSucted tlie hionan ixtfcelleet cnoorelj
through the mazes of i&naticism in the dark ages; and jfid
not suffer healthy scientific iatdlectoal pfower io iwiisL

13ie mathenMiticiaii .and astrDnomer Enitostfafmes of
Olfrene^ ihe moirt celebrated df the Alexandraan HbranauSj
availed himself of the treasures at his oconmaiid by i^oi^g
<tihem up inio a systemjatic '^ universal geography/' fie freed
.ge(]^caphical description from mythical legends, 'snd, sS-
thofn^ himself occupied with chronology and history, even
separated from it the historical admixtures 'by which it
had been pcevioo^y not nngracdfuHy exdivened. ^eir
absence ^as satisfactorily supplied by mathematical ocbl-
^erations on t&e more or less articulated form of continents,
and on thidr extent; and by geological conjectures on 6ie
comiection of chains ot mountains, the action of currente,
'-and the former presence of an aqueous covering over the
surface of lands still bearing traces of having been once the
/bottom of the sea. [Regarding mth favoi9 the oceanic sluice
^&eory of Strato of Lampacus, the Alexandrian librarian was
«8d by the beKef of the former swollen state of the Euxine,
Hhedisruption of the Dardanelles, and the consequent opening
•of the pillars of Hercules, to the important investigation of
ihe problem df the equality of level of the ''outward sea
^encompassing all conftinents.'^ (*®^) A farther instance of
happy genersflisation on the part of Eratosthenes is his asser-
tion that fbi^ whole continent of Asia is traversed in the
parallel! of Bhodes, (the diaphragm of Dicearchus), by a
tomieoted chain of mountains running East and West. (^®)
A lively desire for generalisation, the result df the intel-
kofcuai movemeift of the period, also led Eratosthenes to set
on foot the first (Hellenic) measurement of an arc (tf the

i

luleiddiaii, hwmg ita ^tromitied at Alexasdcia snd S^ene^
and for its object the ajpproximate deteiminainoa of the earth^ s
circmiifeieiice. It is not Obe lesult thafc he obtaiiied, based
as it was upon impecfect dato^, foinished by pedestarians^
which awakens aur interest; it is the endeavour of Hm
philosopher to rise firom tiie narrow limits of a single couxiby
to the knowledge of the magnltade of the entiis globe.

A similar tendency towards generalization of view is
manifested in the brilliant advances made in the epoch of
the Ptolemies towards a scientific, knowledge of the heavens t
J allude here to the dietermination of the places of the fixed
atars by the earliest Alexandrian astronomerSj AristyUns
and Timocharis; — ^to Aristarchus oi Samos, the cotempo*
xaiy of Geanthes, who^, familiar with the old Pythagpreaai
Tfiews^ adventured an inquiry into the relations in apace oi
the whole fabric of the Universe^ and who first recogmsed
the immeasurable distance of the heaven of the fixed stars
bom. oqz little ^anetary s^stemj, and even conjectured the
twofold movement of the earth> i e, her rotation round hear
axis> and her progressive, movement around the. smi; — to
Sdeucus of Erythrea, or of Babylon^ (^^) who, a century
later,, sou^t to. support the views of the Samian philoso-
pher (views which we may iesm CJopemican, and which at
that period found little a«eeptance). ; — and to Hipparchu^
the creator of scientific astroQomy,, and the greajfeest of ob^
serving astronoiaers ia all antiquity. Amoug the Greeks^
Hipparchu3 was the true and prop^ author of astronomieal
tables, (272) and the discoverer of the precession of the equi*
noxes. His> own obflervafeiond of fixed staars (made at Ehodes,
lyot at Alesaaddaii),, wh&ik compared with those of TiiQO^
' «h«tia and AdstyflpiSj^ led. him (parobably without th& sssddsm

176 EPOCHS m THE HISTOEY OF THE CONTEMPLA.TION

apparition of a new star (^T^) )to this great discovery; to whi^h
the long-continued observation of the heliacal rising of Sirius
ought indeed to have conducted the eariier Egyptians. (^74)
Another peculiar feature in the proceedings of Hippar-
chus, was his endeavouring to avail himself of celestial phe-
nomena for determinations of geographical position. Such
a combination of the study of the heavens and the earthy
the knowledge of the one becoming reflected on the other,
served by its uniting tendency to give a lively impulse to
the great idea of the Cosmos. In a new map of the ^world,
constructed by Hipparchus, and founded on that of Eratos-
thenes, wherever the application of astronomical observa-
tions was possible, the geographical positions were assigned
by longitudes and latitudes, obtained, the former from lunar
eclipses, and the latter from lengths of the solar shadow
measured by the gnomon. The hydraulic clock of Ctesibius,
an improvement upon the ancient Clepsydra, might afford
the means of making more exact measurements of time;
whilst, for determinations in space, gradually improved
means of angular measurement were offered to the Alexan-
drian astronomers, from the old gnomon and scaphe to the
invention of astrolabes, solstitial armills, and dioptras.
Thus men arrived by successive steps, as if by the acquisi-
tion of new organs, to a more exact knowledge of the
movements of the planetary system. It was only the know*
ledge of the absolute magnitudes, forms, masses, and phy-
sical constitution of the heavenly bodies, which made no
progress for many centuries.

. Not only were several practical astronomers of the Alex-
andrian school themselves distinguished geometricians, but
&e epoch of the Ptolemies was moreover the most brilliant

07 THB XTNITE&SE. — ^EPOCH 07 THE PTOLEMIES. 177

epoch of the cultivation of mathematical knowledge. There
flourished in the same century Euclid the creator of mathe*
matics as a science^ Apollonius of Ferga^ and Archimedes^
who visited Egypt and was connected through Conon with
the Alexandrian school. The long path of time which
leads &om what is called the geometric analysis of Plato^ and
the three conic sections of Menaechmes, (^75) to the age of
Kepler and Tycho^ Euler and Clairaut, d'Alembert and
Laplace^ is marked by a series of mathematical discoveries,
without which the laws of the motions of the heavenly
bodies, and their mutual relations in space, would never
have been disclosed to mankind. The telescope pierces
•pace, and brings distant worlds near tlirough our sense of
vision. Mathematical knowledge forms a no less powerful
instrument of another glass : ever leading us onward through
the connection of ideas, it conducts us to those distant re-
gions of space, of part of which it has taken secure posses-
sion. In our own times so favoured in the extension of.
knowledge, by the appUcation of all the resources afforded
by modem astronomy, a heavenly body has even been
jeen by the intellectual eye, and its place, its path, and its
mass pointed out, before a single telescope had been directed
towards it. (^76^

IW

»OCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF rHB

UNTVEBSE. ROMAN EMPIBB.

IV.

Bomaii UniTerscd Umpire-— Inflitence on Cosmical Ykiyrs ti » great
Political UnioA of Goimtiies — Flrogvess of Geogiapli^ tiboaf^
Cominezcd. by Litadr— Siarabo and Ptokaiy — Conimeacemeat •!
Mathematical Optics aad Chemistry — ^Pliny's Attempt at a Physi-
cal Description of the Universe — ^The Else of Christianii^ pro-
duces and favours the Peeling of the Unity of Manldnd.

Is tracing tie intellectual progress of mankind and its
gradual extension of cosmical views, the period of the Eoman
tmiversal Empn-e presents itself as one of the most im-
portant epochs. We now for the first time find all those
fertile regions of the globe which snrronnd the basin of the
Mediterranean connected in a bond of dose political nnion,
which also comprehended extensive countries to the east-
ward. I may bere appropriatdy notice, (^^) that tins
political union gives to the picture which I endeavour to trace,
(that of the history of the contemplation of Ae universe), an
objective unity of presentation. Our civilization, t, e. the
intellectual devdopment of all the nations of the European
G)ntinent, may be regarded as based on that of the
dwellers around the Mediterranean, and more immediately
on that of the Greeks and the Eomans. That which
tie term, perhaps too exclusivdy, dassical literature,
has received this denomination through men's recog-
xition of the source from whence our earliest know-

HIS9CAT 07 THE CaNTBVFLATKlX 07 THB TTNirBBSE. 179

ledge hm hxg/^j floMred^ and which gave the first impulse
to a class of ideas and £ee£ngsL most intimately comieeted
with the civilization and inteUectnal devatiou of a natioB
or a race. (^^^) We do not by any means r^ard as
luumportaH^ the elemeots of knowledge^ whicfa^ flowb^
through the great eixrrent of Qredc and Bcman cultiratioii^
were yet derived ia a variety of ways from other sources —
£;om the valley of the "NUe, Phoeaitsa^ the banks of file
Euphrates, ai^ Indian but even for these we are indebtec^
ia tiie first instasice, to the Greeks, and to Bomans snr^
lomided by Etruscans and Greeks^ At how late a period
have the great monumei^s of more anciently civilized
nations^ been direetly examined, interpreted, and airanged
aecocdiBg to liieir relative antiquity ! It is cmly within s
ireiy recent period that hien^^Mcs «d cuneiform m^
scriptions have been read, aftas having been passecE for
thousands of years by acmies and caravans^ who dmmei.
nothing of their in^^rt..

Erom the shores of the Mediterranean, and cspetiafly icma:
ks Itdic and Hellenic pemnsulaa, have iindeed pfooeeded
the intellectaal character and political instiitmtions of those
nations who now possess the daily increasing treasures' dt
srientific, knowledge and creative artistic activity, whida
we would faizK regard a& imperishable ; nations which spreads
civilization^ and with it^ first servitude, and. th^i^ ihvciirai*
tarily, libejty,^ aver another hemisjiiere. Xet in modem
Europe too, as it were by a favour of destiny^ unity aad
divescaaiy are stiU happily assocdated. The dements re^
ceived faavB been various^ and no lessi various have
been their appropriation and truisfozmati(»i^ aeQordiBg
tath£ ahaxply contrasted pecsujiaritiea^ aiod indiTidual

180 EPOCHS. IN THE HISTORY OF THS 0ONTBMPLA.TIO1T

of mind and disposition, of the different races by which
Europe has been peopled. Her civilization has been
carried beyond the ocean to another hemisphere, where the
reflex of these contrasts is still preserved in colonies and
settlements, some of which have formed, and others it may
be hoped may yet form, powerful free states.

The Roman state, as a monarchy under the Caesars, whefl
considered only in regard to superficial extent, (279) was infe-
i:ior in absolute magnitude to the Chinese empire under the
dynasty of Thsin and the eastern Han (from SO years before
to 116 years aft^ the commencement of the Christian era);
it was inferior in extent to the empire of Ghengis £haa,
and to the present area of the Russian dominions in Europe
and Asia; but with the single exception of the Spanish
monarchy at the period when it extended over the New
"VTorld, never has there been combined under one sceptre a
greater mass of countries so favoured in climate, fertility,
and geographical position, as the Roman empire from Au«
gustus to Constantine.

This empire, stretching from the western extremity of
Europe to the Euphrates, from Britain and part of Cale-
donia to Gretulia and the limits of the Lybiaa Desert, not
only offered the greatest variety of form of ground, organic
productions, and physical phenomena, but abo presented
mankind in every gradation from cultivation to barbafism, and
from the possession of ancient knowledge and long prac-
tised arts, to the first twilight of intellectual awak^nngL
Itistant expeditions to the North and to the South, to the
Amber Coasts, and, (under iBlius Gallus and Balbus) td
Arabia and the Garamantesj ware carried out with unequal
success. Measurements of tiie whole empire were begiii

- .■ K^ 1. . njm

OF THB TJKmSESB. — ^KOKAN IBHPntE. 181*

mm under Angasrlius, hj Greek geometefs, Zenodoros and
Polycletos; and itineraries and special topographies were
prepared (as had indeed been done some centuries earlier ia
Ate Chinese empire)^ for distribution amongst the several
governors of provinces, (^so) 'fiiese were the first statistical
works which Europe produced. Many extensive prefec-
tures were traversed by Soman roads^ divided into miles ;
and Hadrian even visited tlie different parts of his empire^
tiiough not without interruption^ in an eleven years' journey^
from the Iberian peninsula to Judea, Egypt^ and Mauritania.
Thus a large portion ci the globe^ subject to the Boman
dominion^ was opened and made traversable ; '^pervius orbis/'
as the chorus in Seneca's Medea less justly prophesies of the
wholiB earth. {»^)

We mighty perhaps^ have expected that during the en*
joyment of long-continued peaoe^ and the union under a
single monarchy of such extensive countries and different
climates, the facility and firequ^icy with which the provinces
were traversed by civil and military functionaries, often ac-
companied by a numerous train of educated men possessed
of varied information, would have been productive of extra-
ordinary advances, not only in geography, but also in th^
knowledge of nature generally, and in the formation of higher
views ocmceniing the oonnectiou of pbenomena. Such high
cspectations were not, however, realised. In the long
period of the undivided Boman empire, occupying almost
lour centuries, there arose as observers of nature only Dios->
eovides the GiUoian, and Galen of Pergamos. The first of
Aese, who augmented considerably the numb^ of described
speeies of plants, is &r inferior to the philosophically com**
Iming Theopfarastas^ — ^whereas Galen, wbo extended his

182 EFOCHB IN SHE .HfiSVQBX OV OSEpB. G01fBliaLATI0]|

obflerratiQaifr toiiXDM^r genera «f.Mumala^ bj thf fi9eaflWr4[&
hia dastuietiQDfl^ tad tbe compisbflaflmineia of h^
gbal SmmwE^ '' BUf be pla«odi Texy neat to ATrkldil%
aod in moat neq^aeia ctidi above* him.^ H ift Giuaer viii
has pixHUHUieed thia jv^gmeKt. (^^

Bjr the aUe cf Dsnaoorid^aiBd Galwabiiiest* tkirdaaA
great. naniA— ^Jifit of ftoihin;* I dc^ Ofik dtfl»}|u» kaataii
the aatibos of an aatwaiffliwial $jnici% eir a» ib geepifiuti^
but as an sip«ri]iieiilal pbjsBieat fldkiopllav MhotmemamA
reCradtRnis^ and, therefore, asr tbe &s(h finindnr of aJfrWinnirtMift
j»art of op&aL aeffincet. His incontetludda ri^^ m. 6m
respect were not re<»gBiaedisntiLii^lat%>(^^)( ImgwHhnli
as were the advances Biad&in tha. depctauBtof avganittli^
snd in the general views of comparatiye zootomy,. t^^M
aqoenmeats on tiis: passant ef nfsr of h^^^ at %ipmoi.t9t
cantisFies anterioi to tfait of tlM iasbuaaav mafc aaBfl6.a«t
alt^tionjRetimocciBBDb^; tiugrfonn,. aft itimn^ibmSa^
step, in a newl]iB^<^ieEe<£ oomrae^ — a itt^vasfeeBBeaE of jwiflfr'
mBidctijkijmuL- ....

The. diatingaifiUliBaai whom we bnnr Bmedcast adMiUa^
seeent^c lustse es die peribd af the SonuDE eaB^anv veerafi H
Qreciati origiAf (th^ pEofiomd ajihtiiieiii^ algdbaasflkSXa^
phastcEs, (^ nbo, bowrm, waa alfflk witifcaHt tke wft «l
sjmbds) beloBgn^ t»^ a later tioBB.) la. thtttP(»dbief.diri»
aioDs in respect to^inkttectnal cuiiivatiim wUefa; the Bqmbb
emigre parosaita te OS, tiw pajba was. atffl wtfK the fieSfliat
file older and ooore happiif afgaaiaaA aatioan; hgt. timt
dmi decHne of tihȣgjptimiLkxMicbaai
hj the diapemioa ef tiiec atiiil wammmg^ hnk
points (rf £ght b» scknitifte fawvvfadgfr a&4 iiriBoiiala
gation; anc^itwas eri^«t a Mv |isaoi. ttii.1ikf

I

J

^ OP THE UHinaEtSB. — TiXmAN EM? IBS. 183

pesffedin Greece and Asia Minor. JLs in all unliHuted
fiionarchies of enonnous extent^ and CQnQtf)aad of rhetezD-
^eneous demeatSj the efforts of the gaveouneat vsere pm-
«7pally directed to avert by loilitary ioeoe, and by tiie internal
xiyabies of a divided adndinstxatHa^ impending dismem-
1»ffirment and dissolution — ^to oonoeal &milj discords in tbe
liovse of tbe Caesars bj alternate imildness and seventy^ —
mi^ under a few nobler raleis, to gire to die nations be-
neath their svraj the rcjpose which imresisted despotism
can at times afford.

The attainment of the ILoman anivarsal empire was itself
U bmjb of the greatness of the Boman chaxacte^ ci a long
preserved severity of maniier^ and of «n exohisive love of
country, united with high individual feeling ; but affcer tim
mdversal empirerwas attained^ these noble qualities becamiB
giadiialLj weakened, and ^»^e peirv^ited even by the inevi-
table influences which new circumstances called foath. Am
the national sjnrit beeamA extimoti H^ sBsm deadeniiDg effect
extended to individual hfe^ publicity aad i&dividbaailiky^— ^
Ae two ehief isopporte d free iBSlitatiioQS^-^-disappeared
at the lama timeu Hhd eternal cilf had beeome tiate
eentr^ cl too grea^ « <oi»^; the ispnk wbich could per-
xaaofifitfy animate a body ao vast^ and <eomposed of m
Humj memboKs, w9a wasr^i^. ChrisliaBSly became tike
cetigioa of the state when the «n^ire was aliready i^cdac
po its ibiLBdalioiig; iteed "the auldness ^ef the new dockiae,
and its benefioeni infltten^Si were soon tUsturbed by ihd
ii^gniatb fltrif e cf paidfifi. Thm also began the ^uofeir-
te&ate eontesfc between Imowladge and iaifii,^ wkidi, under
maam hemB, all tending to impede invei^t^tion, has been
iifBitiiriffied tlttftugfa ^wmeesdMiiai; centmes.

184 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOUY OP Tilt! CONTEMPLA f loft

Although, however, the vastness of the Boman empire,
and the institations which that vastness rendered necessaryi
were strongly contrasted with the independent life of the
small Hellenic republics, and tended rather to deaden than
to cherish creative intellectual power among its citizens, yet
there resulted from the same cause some peculiar advantages,
"which should be noticed here. A rich accession of ideas
was the fruit of experience and varied observation ; the world
of objects was considerably augmented, and the ground was
thus laid for a thoughtful contemplation of natural pheno*
mena at a later epoch. The Roman empire gave animation
to the intercourse between nations, and extended the Eomari
language over the whole of the "West, and over a portion of
Northern Africa. In the East, Greek influence survived, as
if naturalised, long after the Bactrian empire had been de-
stroyed under Mithridates I. (thirteen years before the attack
of the Sacse, or Scythians.)

• In point of geographical extent, the Boman language!
'gained upon the Greek, even before the seat of empire was
feransfened to Byzantium. The interpenetration of two
'Jhighly-gifted idioms, rich in literary monuments, became t
means of faarther blending and uniting different nations and
faces, and of increasing civilization and susceptibilitry to
mental culture; it tended, as Pliny says, (^sc) ^*to huma-
idze men, and to give them a common country." However
much the language of the barbarians (the dumb, ayXctwcroe, as
PoUux calls th^n) may have been contemned, yet the*e
were instances in which the feanslation of a literary woik
from the Praiic to the Roman language was desired by ti»
' pubhc authorities : Magogs Treatise on Agriculture is know;!
to have been translated by the command of the Bomlii

OF THS UNIVSBSE. — ^BOMAN EMPISB. 186

Senate. The Lagid» had previously given examples of a
similar kind.

Whilst the Eoman empire extended westward to the ex«
tremity of the old Continent (at least on the northern sida
' of the Mediterranean)^ its eastern limit, under Trajan, who
navigated the Tigris, reached only to the meridian of the
Persian Gulf. It was in this direction that, at the
pmod we are describing, the greatest intercourse between
different nations took place in a shape very conducive to the
progress of geography, viz. that of commerce by land.
After the fall of the Greco-Bactrian empire, the rising and
flourishing power of the Arsacides favoured intercourse with
ike Seres ; but to the Bomans this communication was only
an indirect one, their immediate contact with the interior of
Asia being impeded by the active carrying trade of the Par-
thians. Movements which proceeded from the most distant
parts of China produced sudden and violent, though not per«
manent, changes in the political state of the vast range of
oountiy, which extends from the Thian-schan mountains to
ihe Kuen-lun, the chain of Northern Thibet. During the
reigns of the Boman emptors Yespasian and Bomitian, a
Qiinese military expedition overran and oppressed the
Hiungnu country, rendered tributary the little kingdoms of
Khotan and Kashgar, and carried its victorious arms as far
as the eastern coast of the Caspian. This was the great
.^Epedition led by the military commander Pantschab, under
the Emperor Mingti of the dynasty of the Han. Chinese
writers even ascribe to this adventurous and fortunate leader,
cotemporaneous with Vespasian and Domitian, a grander
0an ; they assert that he designed to attack the empire of the
Jtomans (Tathsin) ; but that the advice of the Persians in-
duced him to change his purpose {^. Thus there arose con-

1B6 EPOCBS ISr THE 9IST0&Y 09 TOE COlSnEaSSLLTlOV

iieeti(Mis between the coasts of thePaciiSc/tlffi Shensi^ x6A thfi
region around the Oxus, in which there had beeoa, frosDa vcay
nearly tifisoes/aai^txaBiated traffic with the neighboiaichood of the
Black Sea.

The directicm in whidh the great tide of popnlttfion flowied
in Asia was from east to w^t, as in the Neur Continent
Irom noitii to sonth. A oentiuy and a half before our «r|,
&ear the Hme of the destruction of Corinth and of Oarthage,
ibe atta^ of the Hiungnu (a Turkish tiibe confoimded by
De GTa%nes and Johannes Miiller with the I^innish Huns) on
the fsir 4iaired and blue^yed^ probably Indo-Oemmnic^ ta^
of ihd (^ Yueli (Getae ?) and Usun, near the Chinese iraB,
-gKve the first iaapiiilse to that ^^ migration of nations^^ whicb
did not reach the borders of Europe nntii five •ce&tiiries
later. Thus the wave of populaticm flowed {at was propa-
gated) from the npper vaJley of the Hoai^ho to the Bon
a&d the Danube ; and in the northam part of the Old Con-
tinent, movements advancing in different directions brought
one part of mankind &rst into hosiik collision, ajid
subsequently into peacefol and conuaercaal oontact wxlii
another. Thus we may regard great cmvents of popula-
tion^ moving forward like the cunents of the ocean
between unoioved masses ait rest^ as facts of cosmical iio*
portanoe.

Under iite reign of the Emperor Cla;udiu^ the embassy
of Kachias came from Ceylon, through Egypt^ to Borne.
Under Maidens Aurelius Antoninus (eaSed by the historians
fxf the dynasty of the Han^ Antun), Baman legates appoured
at the Chinjese court, having come by water by Tonkin* I
here point out the first traces of an estezkded intercourse
Itetwoen the Boman Empire and China and India fen: this
among others^ that it is highly probaUe thttt thiwi^

OW THE UKTVEI^E.-^BOMATC EMFISE* 187

tUs. mterooux9e the knowledge of the Greek sphere^ the
Greek zodiac^ and the astrological planetary week^ extended
to the last-named conntries in the first centuries of ou;
era. (^^) The great Indian mathematicians Warahamihiray
Bramagapta, and perhap even Aryabh»tta> are later than the
period of which we are treating; {^^) but it is also possible
that a partial knowledge of discoveries earlier madcj in ways
distinct and apart in iQdia itself and originally belonging
to that anciently civilized nation^ may have been conveyed
to the countries of the West before Diophantus^ through the
extensive commercial intercourse which took place under the
LagidsB and the Caesars. We do not here undertake to dis-
tinguish accurately what belongs to each nation and to each
epoch ; it is enough if we point out the channels which were
opened to the conununication and interchange of ideas.

The gigantic works of Strabo and of Ptolemy testify in
the most lively manner the increase which had taken place
in ikese channels and in general international intercourse.
The ingenious geographer of Amasia had not Hipparchus^s
exactness of measurements or the mathematical views of
Ptolemy ; but his work surpasses all the geographical writings
of antiquity both in grandeur of plan and in the variety and
abundance of materials. Strabo^ as he takes pleasure in
telling us, had seen with his own eyes a considerable part of
the Koman empire, " ff om Armenia to the Tyrrhenian coasts,
and from tbe Euxine to the borders of Ethiopia.'^ After
having completed forty-three bocks of history as a continuation
of Polybius, he had the courage in the eighty-third year of
his age (29^) to commence his great geographical work.
He reminds his readers "that in his time the power of the
Somans and of the Parthians had opened the world even

VOL. TI. 0

ISS XPO0I& IN THE HISPIOBT OF THB OOlVMltfAjLTION

more than Alexander's expediticms^ oil ifideh EratOGrtheM
had rested/^ The commerce of India ^nas no Icmger in thi
hands of the Arabians : Strabo saw in Egypt trith snepiis*
the increased number of ships Which safled direct from M]«6
Hormos to India; (^^) and his imagination led him b^ond
India itself to the eastern coasts of Asia. In the pandld
of latitude which passes through the pillars of Herenles and
the Island of ^Rhodes, and in which Strabo believed that a
connected chain of mountains traversed tiie old continent da
its greatest breadth, he conjectured the eiii^^ice of '^anothdr
continent between the western coast of Europe and Asia.
"He says, {^^^) "it is very possible that there may be, beside
the world which we inhabit^ in the same tanperate zono,
about the parallel of Thinse (or Athens?) which passes
through the Atlantic Sea, one or more othiar worlds inhalHied
by men different from ourselves/' It is surprising that the
attention of Spanish writers in the beginning of the sixte^tii
century, who thought that they found everywhere in the
•lassies traces of a knowledge of the new world, should not
have been attracted by this passage.

''Since,'' & Strabo finely says, "in all works of ait
which would represent something great, the object is not &e
^ish and completeness of separate parts," so in his "g^antic
work'' it was his wish to fix his attention primarily
On the fonn of the whole. This predilection^ for gene-
ralisation has at the same time not prevented him from
bringing forward a great number of excdOient physical ob-
servations, and particularly many concerning the stmctnie
of the earth. {^^) Like Posidonius and Polybius, he
discusses Ihe influence of the shorter or longer interval
between successive passages of the sun through the zeniUi

Of tne tmrrBBSB.^HBOHAK impiab. 189

under (lie tropic or the equator npon the maximum of iem-
peratuve of tbe «ir; he treats of the variotis causes of the
Ganges wfaieh the suifiEiee of the earth undergoes ; of the
brcfddng tiirough of the boundaries of hkes or seas originally
doeed; of the general ievA of the sea (abeady recognised
hf Archimedes) ; of its currents; of the eruptions of sub-
ntsrine inolcanoes ; of petri&ctions of dbieDs, and impressions
nit Mies; tmd even of the oscillations of the crust of the
earthy -which last point espedallj arrests our attention, as it
has become the nudeus of modem geology, Strabo says
expresdythat the alterations of the boundaries between land
and sea are to foe attributed to the rising and sinking of the
land rather than to small inundations ; ''that not only
detached masses of rode, or small or large islands, but even
whole comtinents may be raised up.'^ Like Herodotus,
Strabo is also attentive to the descent of nations, and to the
diversities of race in mankind ; he curiously enough calls
man a "land and air animal" who ''requires much light'*
(^. We find the ethnological distmctions of races most
acutdy and accurately marked in the commentaries of Julius
Ceesar, as wdl as in Tadtns's fine eulogium oh Agricola.

Unfartunately Strabo's great work, so rich in facts and in
the €dsmic8l views which we have here referred to, remained
almost unknown in Eoman antiquity untQ the fifth century,
and was not even employed by the all-collecting Pliny,
towards ike end of the middle ttges Btrabo's work became
influential on the direction of ideas, though in a less degree
than the more mathematical and more dry and tabular
geography of Claudius PtdemsBus, firom which physical views
are almost entirely absent. This latter work became the
guiding clue of aU travellers as late as the sixteenth century ;

190 EPOCHS IN THB HISTOST 07 THB COKTSICPLATIOK

thej imagined that thej reoc^pused in it nnder different
names whatever new places they discovered. In the same
numn^. that natural historians long attached to new foimd
plants and animals the marks of the classes of Lmnsensy so
the earliest maps of the New Continent appeared in the atlas
of Ptolemj which Agathodsomon prepared^ at the same time
that, in the farthest part of Asia> among the highly civilised
Chinese, the western provinces of the empire (^?^) were
already marked in forty-four divisions. The nnivarsal
geography of Ptolemy has, indeed, the merit of presenting to
us the whole of the ancient world graphically in outlmes,
as well as numerically in positions assigned according to
longitude, latitude, and length of day ; but often as he
affirms the superiority of astronomical results over itinerai;
estimates by land or water, we are unfortunately without
any means of distinguishing among these assigned positions,
above 2500 in number, the nature of the fopmdation on
which each rests, or the relative probability which may be
ascribed to them according to the itineraries then existing.

The entire ignorance of the polarity of the magnetic needle,
and of the use of the compass, which 1250 years before the
time of Ptolemy, under the Chinese emperor Tschingwang,
had been employed in the construction of ^^ magnetic cars''
furnishing an index to the road to be followed, rendered
the most detailed itineraries of the Greeks and Somans
extremely uncertain, from a want of knowledge of the direc-
tion or angle with the meridian. {^^)

In the better knowledge which has recently been ob-
tained of the Indian and ancient Persian (or Z^id) lan-
guages, we are struck by the fact that a great paitof
the geographical nomenclature of Ptolemy may be re^paided

Of THB imiVBBSB.-— BOMAN BUFIU. 191

m an liistorio monnment of the commercial relations
between the West and the most distant regions of sonthem
and central Aria. (^ One of the most important geographical
results of these relations was the correct opinion of the
insolation of the Oas|Han Sea, which was restored by Ptolemy
after the contrary error had lasted five hundred years. The
troth on this subject had been recognised both by Herodotus
and by Aristotle, tiie latter hating fortunately written his
Meteorologica before the Asiatic campaigns of Alexander.
Hie Olbiopdites, from whose lips the fiither of history had
gathered the account which he followed^ were jEEmiiliar with
the northern shores of the Caspian betwera the Kuma^ the
Volga (Bha)^ and the Jaik (Ural) ; and there was nothing
tiiere which could give them an idea of an outlet to the Iqr
Seai Yery different reasons produced the erroneous im-
pression received by the Macedonian army, when^ passing
tim>u^ HecatompyloB (Damaghan)^ thqr descended into
the humid forests of Mazanderan^ and, at Zadracarta^ a little
to the west of tlie present Asterabad, saw the apparently
boundless expanse of the Caspian in the northern direction.
Flutarch tells us in his Life of Alexander that this sight first
caused the hypothesis that the #a thus seen was a gulf of
tiie Euxine. (^ The Macedonian OLpedition, although
it was upon the whole very favourable to the progress of
geographical knowledgCi yet gave rise to particular errors
which long maintained themselves. The Tanals was con*
founded with the Jaxartes (the Araxes of Herodotus), and
tiie Gaocastts with the Paropanisus (the Hindoo Coosh).
Ftolemy, during his residence iat Alexandria, was able to
obtain certain accounts firom countries immediately adjoining
/-the Caqpian|(£rom Albania Atn^tene, and Hyrcania), of the

198 BP00H8 nr thb hisioat ot thb ooimiaiiAnoir

oaraTan loads of the Aorai, whose oameb earned Iiidiaii and
Babjloiiiaiigood8totheDonaiidtoiIieKackSea(^). lS,Wk^
traiy to the joster knowledge of Hecodotnt^ Ptotoay beUered
the length of the Caspian to be greatest in tiieeart and west
direction^ he may perhaps haTe been thus misled by some
obscure knowledge of the former greater ixtent of Ao
Scythian Gulf (Eaiabogas) ; and the ^dsAcneeof Lake Anl,
the first decided notice of which we find in & BysKntine an*
thor, Menander, who wrote a oontinnatioii of Agatihiaa. (^
It is to be regretted that Ptolemy, who leeloeed Ha
Caspian Sea» (which the hypothesia cf four gnl& sop-
posed to be the reflections or oonnierparts of siBttlar ones in
the disk of the moon {^^) had bug k^ open), did not aft
the same time give up the fiiUe of tiie '^ unknown sonthflRi
land'' connecting Gape Frasnm with Oattigara and Thins^
(Sinarum metropolis) ; therefore ccmnecting eastern Afinca
with the land of Tsin, or China. This myth, whieh would make
the Indian Ocean an inhmd sea, was derived from vievs
whiidi may be traced back from Marinns of Tyre to Hip*
parchusj Seleucos the Bfkbyloniant, and evento Aristotte. (^
In these cosmioal descriptioiis of the progressive advance of
the knowledge and oontemi^ation of the Universe, it is soft*
cient to lecal by a few examples how in successive fluctuatianB
the already half recognised tretii has often been ^;aiii
obscured. The more the increased extent bo& of aavigatioii
and of traffic by land seemed to render it possiUe to know
tiie whole of the earth's suifoee, the more actively, espeoiaUf
in the Alexandrian period under the Lipids, and nnder thtf
Boman empire, did the never alumbering Hellenic imagine*
tion seek by ing^ous comUneiiona to Uend all previous
coigectures with the newly added stores of actual knowledge^

an^ tbcui to QomplwUi »t onoe the yet scaicdjr sketclied map
cf tbaeiMfth.

We have alfseady briefly notiioed that Qaodius FtolemsBUfl
bg^ 14» optica^ n^seaiches (which have l^een preserved to us^
a)|jjtiqqgh( 19 a Yeiy ioc(Hn^ete staic^ by the Axabians) be-
oeip^ the fep^i^Eir of a Imaich. of mathei»atical physiGs ;
\|b^qh^ u^Jee^^ iioeordijig to Thecm of Alexandiia^ (^
had already been touched upoE, so &r as relates to the le-
ftac^mik i4 i!9j&% 191 tiie Catoptrii^ of Ardiimedes. It is a
y^ impolite step ia advance, wheii physical phenomena,
mtmA ok ^mg simply observed and compared with, each
(lth^>--H^ wkidi WO} find memocable examples in Greoiaa^
dfiia^ij Wk tbe p8e^do-AJristotetian problems, which are foli.
qCB>aHw,ai^diftRo»>anaailiqmiyinthewril^ —

lie prodiM»d at ifiU nndei altered oondifeiolis, and measured*,
(3M) Th^ pioAeoa thus retoed to ohiyracteriaes PtoIem/s>
remki^Mi Qn the re&netion of rays of Ught when made to passi
tlNxmgk media of uiJie^pM^deosiiy. He caused the xays to, pasn
&Qm airinto w^tarand g^iass, and from water into glass, under
different. a9gl98 <^ ineideiiQeb Tfai&mrults oi these " physical
cB^pewpnenti^^ ^«re f^oUe^ted bj) hiin v^ td)les. This,
measioiii^inmk of a fhyaioal phenomenon purpose^ caUed
fpith> ^ a natuffd process not reduced to a movement of
cl the waves of ]j^ (AriMotle aamiied a movement of the
me^jwin intervening between the eye and the.objeet seen)^
is a sofitaiy oocvirrenoe in th& period of which we are
ifidfiimf^ (3^) In the* invest^iatjtn ol inovgaoio imtme^
this period offers in additioa only a kw ohemieal eKpeximenta
by Sioeeorides^ and, aft I havc^ elsewhere obaewed^ ihe^
tfic^nic^ art of; ^Sei^tiiigt floid^ whim piiawipg^vfeff indiatiQiis

194 EPOCHS nr thb histost ov the ookteicplatioii

tion. ('^) Ab ehemifltiy first begins irhen men have kami
to employ mineral acids as powerfdl solvents, and aa means of
liberating substances, the distillation of sea-water, described
by Alexander of Aphrodisias, in the reign of Garacalla, is
deserving of great attention. It indicates the path by wfaadi
men gradually arrived at the knowledge of the heteregeheily
of substances, their combination in chemical compoonds, and
their reciprocal attractions or affinities.

We can onfy dt^ as having advanced the knowledge of
organic nature, the anatomist Marinus, Bufns of Ephesns
who dissected apes and distinguished between nerves of
sensation and of motion, and Galen of Pergamos Who eclipses
all other names. The natural history of animais by .ffilian of
Prseneste, and the poem treating of fishes written by Oppianus
of CSilicia, do not contain facts based on the author's own
examination, but only scattered notices derived from other
sources. It is hardly conceivable how the enormoiis multi-
tude (^') of rare animals, which, during four centuries, were
massacred in the Boman circus, — elephants, rhinocofoses,
hippopotamuses, elks, Uons, tig«», panthers, crocodiles, and
ostriches, — should never have been rendered of any use to
comparative anatomy. I have already spoken of the merits iof
IMoseorides in segard to the knowledge of collected plants:
his works exercised a poverful and long-enduring influence
on the botany and phacmaceutical ohemistiy of the Arabians.
The botanical garden of the Boman physidan Antonius
Gastor (who lived to upwards of a hundred years of age),
imitated, perhaps, from the botanical gardens of Theo-
phrastus and Mithridetes, was probiibly of no greater scien-
tific use than the coQectton of fossil bones of the Emperor

07 THB UKIVIB8B. — ^BOUAN EMnXl. 195

AugostUB^ or theassemUagec^ objeots of natural liistoiy
which has been ascribed on very feeble grounds to Appukios
of MadauTR. {^)

Before we close the desci^on of what the period of
the Soman empxe oontribated towards the adyanoement
of cosBiiGal knowledge^ we have still to mention the grand
essay towards a description of the Universe which Cains
Plinins Secnndus endeavoured to comprise in thirty-seven
books. ' In tiie whole of antiqnity nothing abnilar had been
attempted; and although in the execntion of the work
it became a kind of enc^dqwedia of nature and art
(the author in his dedication to Titus not 8onq>ling to
apply to his work the then more noble Greek expression
9yKvK\oirati€ia), yet it cannot be denied that, notwithstimding
the want of an internal connection and coherence of parts,
still the whole presents a fdan or sketch of a physical
description of the Universe.

The Hist(»ia Natundis of Pliny^-^tenned Historia Mundi
in the tabular view whidbi forms what is now called the first
book, and in a letter of his nephew's to his Mend Macer
more finely described as a Natures. Historia., — embraces the
heavens and the earth, the position and course of the
heavenly bodies, the meteorological processes of the atmo*
sphere, the forms of the earth's sur&ce, and all terrestrial
objects, from the v^table covering of the land and the
moUusce of the ocean up to the race of man. Maidundare
considered according to the variety of their mental disposi-
tions and intelleotual powers, and to the cultivation and ex-
altation of these as mainifested in the noblest works of art. I
have here named the elements of a general knowledge of nature
which lie scattered ahnoat without order in the great work

I9f £FO0Hft m lan euoobx op tvs ooiimmtumos

«C which ve ave apeakiog. /'Tb^ piKth Ub whkh I piopooi
to Wflk" aajs Flioy^ mtik nM^ confldQQoe in hiioself^ ^ it
untrodden, (non trita auctoribns via) ; no one anions
Qor^dv^sy, BO ow lOQong the Greekcii^ haa undertake to
tpeat as one the whole ei nature (nemo. apod Ghmeoa q/A
unua omnia bactaverit^ If my nftdertakittg ie no^ sneoess**
fill, still it is aomething fair and noUe (pulehrani atqoe
magttificnm) to have attempted ita acoconplishmenL''

There floated before the mind of Pliny a grand and
single imi^; but diverted from his purpose by specialities
and wanting the Uving pefaonal oontemphtion of natore^
he was unable to hold &8t this image. The execution
remained impecfect, not moely fiom haste and ireqpenb
want of knowledge t)f the ob}ieot8 to be treated, but ako
tpmi defective arrangement. We may judge thns firom
those portiona of work whieh are now accessible to usl Hfia
recognise in theauthor a man of rank, fall of occnpatio%
who prides himself on labour bestowed on his wock in
sleepless nights, but who, whilst exercising the fiiuetioiia
of govenunent in Spain, and those of superiutendevt of
the fleet in Lover Italy, doubtleas too often confided to
imperfectly educated dqtendants the loose web of an
endless compilation. This fondnesa for compilation, t. e,
fbr a kborions collection of separate observationa and
fects such as the state of knowlec^ conld then afford^
is, in itself, by. no means deserving of oenaurei the knperw
fection in the success of the resolt arose from the want
of capacity foUy to mastof and oemmand the aecuma*
lated materiaLi,T— to subordinate the dtsoiptiona of natora
to hitler and more general viewB,««^'«]d to keep ateadStyi
to the pdut of view from which the whole should be seei^

OV THB imXVSSSB.— SOKAK BlIPIBB. 19V

m.j iliat of a compantive study of mime. The germi <tf
sach higher views^ not meidy oiographie^ hxA truly geo>
gnoiticy were to be found in Eratosthenes and Strabo ) but
the works of the fomnerwere made use of by Pliny only ta
one instance^ and those of the latter not at all. Nor has he
leamei from Aristode's anatoinieal history of animals^ eithef
the division into great classes based upon tiie principal divert
sities of internal ocguosaliony or the method of indnetian^ •
the only safe means of generalisation of results.

Gommencing with pantheistic oontmnplatioQS and con-
iidenitionB) Pliij descends from the celestial spaces to
terrestrial objects. Kecogmeing the necessity of presentmg
tiie powers and the megesfy of natore (naturae vis atquo
majestaa) as a great and concurrent whole^ (I refer here to
the motto on the .title of my woi^)^ he also distii^piishesi
in the beginning of the third book^ bd^een general and
qpesial geography; but this distinction is soon again forw
gotten and negieeted when he plunges into the dry nom^-
okture of countries^ mountains^ and rivers. Tke greater
part of bodes viii. to zxvii.^ xxxiii. and xxxiv.^ xxxvi. and
xxxvii. is filled with catalogues of the three kingdoms of
nature. The younger Phny^ in cme of his letters^ charac-
terises his uncle's work with great justness as ''a work
learned and ML of matter; no less various than nature
herself (opus diffusum, ouditum^ nee minus varium quam
ipsa natura).'' Mudi which has been made a subject of
reproach to Piiny as needless and extraneous admixture^ I
m inxshned to r^ard rather as deserving of praise. I view
wxtii particular pleasure the firequent references which ho
aiakes^ w^ evident predilection^ to the influ^ace of natnio

r

198 BFOCHS IN THB HESTOB.T Of IHB OOHTEiaiATIOK

on the civilization and mental deydopment of mankind, Hia
points of connection, however, are aeldom happily chosen
(vii. 24 to 47 ; xxv. 2 ; xxvi. 1 ; xxxv. 2; xxxvL 2 to 4;
xxxviL 1.) The nature of mineral and vegetable sab-
stances, for example, leads to a fragment of the history of
the plastic arts; but this fragment has beoome in the
present state of onr knowledge of greater interest and impor-
• tance than almost all which we can gather from his work in
descriptive natural history.

The style of Pliny is rather spirited and livdy than cha-
racterised by true grandeur; he seldom defines pictniesqu^;
and we feel, in reading his work, that the antbor had
derived his impre^ions from books, and not from the free
aspect of nature herself, although he had enjoyed that
aspect in various regions of the earth. A grave and mehm-
choly colouring is spread over the whole, and with this
sentimental tone there is blended a d^ree of faitteniess
whenever man and his circumstances and destiny are touched
upon. At such tiaies (almost as in the writings of
Cicero, (^^) though with less simplicity of diction)^ the
view of the great universal whole of the world of nature is
described as reassuring and consolatory.

The conclusion of the Historia Naturalis of PUby, the
greatest Boman memorial bequeathed to the literature of
the middle ages, is conceived in the true spirit of a descrip*
Hon of the universe. As we now possess it, since 18lSl, (**®)
it contains a cursory view of the comparative natural history
of countries in different zones ; and a laudatory descriptiQii
of Southern Europe between the natural boundaries of- the
Mediterranean and the Alps, and ci the serene heaven at

OT THB UHimSB.— SOXAN XMPnUk 199

Hesperia,! ^where/' aooordiiig to a dogma of the older
I^hagoreansj ''the soft and temperate dimate had early
hastened the escape of mankind from barbarism/'

The influence of the Boman dominion^ as a constant
element of union and fusion, deserves to be brought f orward,
in a history of the contemplation of the universe, with the
more detaQ and force, because we can recc^mse its conse-
quences even at a perioci when the union of the anpire had
been loosened, and in part destroyed, by the assaults and
irruptions of the barbarians* CSaudian, who, in a late and
troubled s^, under Theodosius the Great and his sons,
came forward with new poetic productiveness in the decline
of literature, still songs, intoo laudatorv strains, of the Boman
sovereignly (3") :—

" Haec est, in gremium victos qm sola recepit^
Hnmanimiqiie genus commnni nomine ibvit
MdsSs, non daminsB, ritn; oiTesqiie vocaTit
Qnos domnit, nexnqne pio longlnqna revuudt.
Hig'as pacificis debemus moribus omnes
Quod veluti patriis regionibns ntitur hospes" •

• • • •

Outward means of constraint, skilfully disposed civil in-
stitutions, and long-continued habits of servitude, may
indeed produce union, by taking away separate national
exist^ce ; but the feeling of the unity of mankind, of their
common humanity, and of the equal rights of all portions
of the human race, has a nobler origin : it is in the inmost
imptdses of the human mind, and in religious convictions,
that its foundations are to be sought. Christianity has pre-
eminently contributed to call forth the idea of the unity of
mankind, and has thereby acted beneficently on the '' human-
izing'' of nations, in their manners and institutions. Deeply

BOO xxnimBLAXKiK <xr tbb VKivsunL

iabsswov&i Aon the fint "^ith iShiistiaa doofamM^ iiud k
of hmnanitjr has nevartiidess taif Blowly obtuned its just
recognitioiu At &e tmie ^Aea, from polaiiaeal motiTee^ &t
new Mth was estabUahed at JBytantiam •aa the TeHgktQ of
ike state^ its adherents wne abeacty involTed in naaevaUe
party strife, whilst inteitcourse with diai^nt nattons had hecn
diecked^ and the fonndatioiis ef tiie empire had been ahalow
hf external assaidts* ETen the persond freedom of entire
classes of men loi^ fomid no protection in Ghiiatian states^
and even among ecclesiastical piepriekos and corptmtions.
&Loh nnnatacal impedime»tBy aad manyothos which staH
atand in tiiie way of the intdlectiial and social adyanceiQeut
and ennobleaoent of niankindj will giadnalfy vanish. The
principle of individual and political freedom is rooted in the
indestructible conviction of the equal rights of the* whole
human race. Thus, as I have already said in another
place, (3^^) mankind,. as one great br0theriux)d, advance
together towards the attainment cl one common object, the
free development of their moral faculties. This view of
humanity, or at least the tendency towards the formation of
this view, — ^sometimes cheeked, sometimes advancing with
powerful and rapid steps, and by no means a disooveny of
modem times — ^by the mdversality of its direction, bekmgs
most properly to our sabject, as elevating and Mifitiniang
eosmical life. In depicting a great epodi in the history of
the world, that of the Empireof the Bomans and the laws
which they originated, and of thel)^nning of the Christian
religion, it was fittfaig that I should, before all thhigs, leeal
the manner in which Christianity enlarged the views of macD-
kind, and exercised a mild and enduring, although slovfy
operating, influence on Intelligence and drSization,

i

eoi

XNOSS cr TBCB lOSTOM 09 >rHS tiOmKHVMTIOir OT THB
VmrVBBSB. — 1«9 ADTANOBKEItT SY tMS AAABUNa.

V.

luyasion of the Arabians — ^Aptitude of this part of the Semitio
Bace for IhteHecttial Gultiyation— Inflnence of a I'orcign Element
on the Dei^elopment of Enropeim Givflkatioii and Ooltxtre— Pe*
eoliarities of the National Gharaeter of the AxafaiBiis-^Attaeh-
ment to the Study of Nature and its powers — Seience of Ma-
teria Medica and Chemistry — ^Extension of Physical Geography
to liie Interior of Continents, and Adyances in Astronomy and
in the Mathematical Sciences.

In my fkeick of the histoiy of the physical contemplatioii of
liie universe^ I have already enumerated four leading epodis
in the gradual development of the recognition of the miiverse
as a whole. These included, firstly, the period when the
inhabitantB of the coasts of the Mediterranean ^deavourecL
to penetrate eastward to the Euxine and the Phasis, soutk*
ward to Ophir and the tropical gold lands, and westward
through the Pillars of Hercules into the '' all-surrounding
ocean f' secondly, the epoch of the Macedonian expeditions
under Alexander the Great; thirdly, the period of the
Lagidse; and fourthly, -that of the Boman Empire of the
World. We have now to c(msider the powerful influence
exercised by the Arabians, whose civilization was a new de-
ment foreign to that of Europe,^ — ^and, six or seven centuries
later, by the maritime discoveries of the Portuguese uid
Spaniards, — on the general physical and mathematical know*

202 EPOCHS nC THB HI8T0BT OT 1HX C0imSMFIiA.TI02r

ledge of nature^ in respect to form and measurement on the
earth and in the r^ons of space^ to the heterogeneity of
substances, and to the powers or forces resident therein. The
discovery and exploration of the New Continent, with its
lo% Cordilleras and their numerous volcanoes, its elevated
plateaus with successive stages of climate placed one above
another, and its various vegetation ranging through 120
degrees of latitude, mark incontestably the period in which
there was offered to the human mind, in the smallest space
of time, the greatest abundance of new physical perceptions.
Thenceforward the extension of cosmical knowledge has no
longer been connected with poUtical events acting witiiin
definite localities. !From that period the human intellect
has brought forth great things by virtue of its own proper
strength ; and instead of being principally incited thereto by
the influence of extraneous events, it now works simul-
taneously in many directions: by new combinations of
thought it creates for itself new organs, wherewith to examine,
on the one hand, the wide regions of celestial space, and, on
the other, the delicate tissues of animal and vegetable struc-
ture which form the substratum of life. The whole of the
seventeenth century, brilliantly opened by the great discovery
of the telescope and by the more immediate fruits of that
discovery, — ^from Galileo's observations of Jupiter's sateOites,
the crescent form of the disk of Venus, and the solar spots,
to Newton's theory of gravitation, — ^is distinguished as the
jnost important epoch of a newly created ''physical
astronomy." We here find, therefore, once more a marked
epoch, characterised by imity in the endeavours devoted to
the observation of the heavens and to mathematical re-
search; it forms a well-defined section in the great process

of intellectual dbvdbpiueiiliy whicli smce that period hat
advasLced oninterraptedly forward.

Nearer to our own time it becomes so much the moie
diflBcult to distingoiabparticular epochs^ as tbe inteHectoal ao-
tivity of mankind has moved forward aimultaneottsly in many
directions, and as witti a new order of social and political
relations a closer bond of union now subsists between the
differ^t sciences. In the separate stocUes the develoinnent
of which belongs to the '^histoiy of the physical sciences/'
in chmnistiy and descriptive botany, it is stjll quite possible^
even up to the post recent time, to distinguish insulated
periods in which the greatest advances were made, or in
which new views suddenly prevailed; but in the *' history of
the contemplation of the universe/' — ^which, according to its
essihitial character, ought to borrow from the histoiy of
separate studies only that which relates most immediately to
the extension of the idea of the C!osmos,— connection with
particular epochs becomes unsafe and impracticable, since
that which we have just termed an intellectual process of
development supposes an uninterrupted simultaneous ad-
vance in all departments of cosmical knowledge. Having
now arrived at the important point of separation, at which,
after the fall of the Soman Empire of the World, there
appears a new and foreign element of cultivation received by
our continent for the i^i time direct from a tropical coun-
try, it may be use&il to cast a general glance at the path
which, yet remains to be travelled over.

The Arabians, a primitive Semitic race, partially dispelled
the barbarism which for two centuries had overspread the
bee of Europei after it had been shaken to its foundations
by the tempestuous assaults of the nations by whom it was

VOL. IT. P

204 EPOCHS IK THIS HI8T0BT OF THE C0in<EUPIATI01f

OYemin. The Arabians not onlj contributed to presem
scientific cnltiyation, by leading men back to the perennial
sources of Greek philosophy^ but they also extended that cuM-
yation^ and opened new paths to the investigation of natnie.
The desolation of our continent by the overwhelming torrent
of invading nations commenced in the reign of Yalentinian I.^
in the last quarter of the 4th century, when the Huns (of
Finnish not MongoHan origin) crossed the Don, and
oppressed the Alani, and later with the help of these, the
Ostrogoths. Ear off in eastern Asia, the t(»T^t of
migrating nations had been set in motion several centuries
before our era. The first impulse was giv^ as we
have already said, by the attack of the_Hiungnu (a Tork-
isTi tribe), on the fair -haired and blue-eyed, perhaps Indo-
germanic, population of the Usiin, dwelling adjacent to'ihe
Tueti (Get© ?), in the upper valley of the Hoangho in Norfli-
western China. This desolating torrent, props^ated £rom
the great wall erected against the Hiungnu (214 B.C.) to
the most' western parts of Europe, moved through central
Asia north of the chain of the Himalaya. These Asiatic
hordes were not animated by any religious zeal before
they came in contact with Europe; it has even beea
dhown that they were not yet Buddhists (^i^) ^hen th^
arrived as conquerors in Poland and Silesia. Causes of an
entirely different kind gave to the warlike outbreak of a
southern people, the Arabians, a peculiar character.

In the generally compact and unbroken continent of
Asia, (31*) the almost detached peninsula of Arabia, between
the Bed Sea and the Persian Gulf, the Euphrates and the
Syrian part of the Mediterranean, forms a remarkably dis-
tinct feature. It is the westernmost of the three pemnsoiaB

09 THE UNIVERSE. — THE ARABIANS. £05

of Bouthem Asia, and its proximity to Egypt and to a
£afopean sea render its geographical position a very favour*
fiUe one, both politicaily and commercially, in the central
» parts of the Arabian peninsula lived the population of the
Hedjaz, a noble and powerful race^ uninformed but not
rude, imaginative, and yet devoted to the careful observa-
tion of all the phenomena presenting themselves to their
«yes in the open face of nature, on the ever clear vault of
heaven or on the surface of the earth. After this race
had Uved for th6usands of years almost without contact with
the rest of Hhe world, and leading for the most part a
nomadic life, they suddenly broke, forth, became poHshed
tmi informed by mental contact with the inhabitants of the
ancient seats of cultivation, and subdued, proselytised, and
ruled over nations from the Pillars of Hercules to the Indus
as far as the point where the Bolor chain intersects that of
the Hindoo Goosh. Even from the middle of the ninth
isentury they maintained commercial relations at once with the
northeni countries of Europe and with Madagascar^ with East
Africa, India and China; they diffused their language, their
coins, and the Indian system of numbers, and founded a
powerful combination of countries held together by the ties
of a common religious faith. It o&esa happened that great
provinces were only temporarily overrun. The swarming
troop, threatened by the natives, encamped, according to a
coinparison of their native poets, ''like groups of clouds
wHch are soon scattered anew by the wind.'' No national
movement ever offered more animated phenomena; and the
mind-repressing spirit which appears to be inherent in Islam,
has manifested itself, on the whole, £ar less under the Ara-
bian empire than among the Turkish races. Beligious per-

(06 EPOCHS IN THIS HISTOAT OF THB COVTEUfJATlOlt

0eoution was here as elsewhere (ftmong CSuJsttan iiaiioitf
also)^ rather the effect of a boaii<£ess dc^matising despo-
tism, (3^^) than of the (Higiiuil fiEiith and doctrine or of tiie
religious coxitemplation of the natitm. The seTerity of tite '
Koran is principally directed against idolatry, and especially
against the worship of idols by Aramean races.

As the life of natidns is determined not only by then
internal mental dispositions, bat also by many estemal oaiL<-
ditions of soil, dirnate, protimiiy of the sea> &c., we shoidl
first recal the diversities of form presented by the Arabin
peninsula. Although the first impulse which led to iiie
great changes which the Arabians wrought in the three
continents proceeded from the Ismaelitish Hedjaz, and
owed its principal strength to a solitaiy pastoral tribe, ji
the coasts of the other parts of ihe peninsula had for IhoiV'
sands of years enjoyed seme p(»rtion of intercourse with tiie
rest of the world. In order to obtain an insight into the
connection and necessary conditions of great and singobr
events, we must ascend to the causes whidi gradurJly prepaied
the way for thenu

Towards the south west, near tli» Erythrean ISea.^ o
situated the fine fruitful and i^cultoral country of die
Joctanides, {^^^) Yemen, the ancient seat of oi^ilizatioii
(Saba). It produces incense (lebonah of the Hebrewsi, par*
haps BosweUia thurifera, Gdebr.), (3^^) myrrh (a laiid>«f
Amyris, first exactly described by Ehraiberg), amd vefaatn
called the balsam of Mecca (Balsamodendron gileadense!,
Kunth) : all of which formed articles of a considerable trade
with neighbouring nations, and were carried to the Bgfp-
(ians, to the Persians and Indians, and to the GreekB aod
ttomans* It was from the^e productions that the geographioil

J

Of THX innTE]t8B.--THB ABABIANS. 207

ileitomination of Aiabia Felix, which we find first employed
by Diodorus «Qd Strabo, was given. Ou the south-east
«f the pemnsula, on the Persian Gulf, the town of Gerrha,
sitnated opposite to the Phoenician settlements oi Arados
and lyius^ Icmiied an important mart for the traffic
UL Indian goods. Ahhongh almost the wJhole of the in*
tenor of Arabia may be termed a treeless sandy desert,
yet there exist in Oman (between^ Jailan and Batna), a
chain of oases, watered by subteiraaean canak; and we
owe to the activity of the meritorious traveller Wellsted, (3*®)
the knowledge of three mountain chains, of which the lof*^
tiest smomit, Djebd Akhdar> rises, clothed with forests, to
an elevation of more than six thousand feet above the level
of the sea. There are also in the mountain, country of
Yem^, east of Lopeia, and in tiie littoral chain of HedjaZ
in Asyr, as well as east of Mecca near Tayef, elevated
plains, of which, the constantly low temperature was known
to the geographer Edrisi. ('^^)

The same variety of mountain landscape characterises the
peninsula of Sinai, the '^copp^ land'^ of the Egyptians of
the " ancient kingdom'^ (before the time of the Hyksos), and
the rocky valleys of Petra. I have already spoken, in a
preceding section, (^w) of the Phoenician trading settlements
on, the most northern part of the Bed Sea, and the voyages
to Ophir of the ships of Hiram and Solomoi^ which sailed
from Eeion Geber. Arabia, and the adjacent island ol
Socotora (the Island of Dioscorides), inhabited by Indian
settlers, were tiie intermediate links of the traffic of the
world with India and the east coastof Afiica. The produc*
tions of tiiese countries were commonly confounded with
those of Hadramaut and Yemen. We read in the prophet

208 EPOCHS IN THB HISTOET O? THE CONTEMPLATION

Isaiah^ ''they (the dromedaries of Midian) shall come from
Saba^ they shall bring gold and incense/' ('^i) Petra was
the emporium for the valuable goods designed for Tyw
and Sidon^ and a principal seat of the once powerful com-
. merdal nation of the Nabateans^ supposed by the learned
Quatrem^re to have had their original dwelling-place in the
Gerrhft mountains^ near the lower Euphrates. This northern
part of Arabia, by its proximity to Egypt, by the spreading
of Arabian tribes into the mountains bounding Syria and
Palestine and into the countries near the Euphrates^ as well as
by the celebrated caravan road from Damascus through Emesa
and Tadmor (Palmyra) to Babylon^ had come iiitto influential
contact with other civilised states. Mahomet himsdf,
sprung from a noble but impoverished family of the tribe ci
Koreish^ in the course of his trading occupations^ before
he came forward as an inspired prophet and reformer^
had visited the fair of Bosra on the Syrian border, the fair
held in Hadramaut the land of incense, as well as the twenty
days' fair of Okadh near Mecca, where poets, chiefly Bedouins,
assembled for lyrical contests. I allude to these particalaTS
of the Arabian commerce, and the circumstances thenoe
arising, in order to give a more vivid picture of that which
prepared great revolutions in the world.

The spreading of the Arabian population towards ite
north reminds us of two events, the circumstances of
which are indeed veiled in obscurity, but which afford
evidence that ages before Mahomet the inhabitants of
the peninsula had mixed in the affairs of the world Ijy
outbreaks to the west and east, towards Egypt and the
Euphrates. The Semitic or Aramaic descent of the Hyksos,
who, under the twetfth djnasiy, 2200 years before (mr cst^

OF THK UN1VIB8X. — THX AIUBUNS. 2Wf

pat an ead to the ''ancient kingdom" of Egypt, is now
received by almost all liistoric investigators. Manetho eveu
had said^ ''some maintain that these shepherds i^eie
Arabians/' In other sources of historical knowledge they
are called Fhcenicians — a name which in antiquity was
extended to the inhabitants of the valley of the Jordan, and
to all the Arabian tribes. The acute Ewald refers particu-
larly to the Amalekites (AmalekaUans), who originally dwelt
in Yemen, and then spread themselves by Mecca and Medina
to Canaan and Syria, and are said, in early Arabian historical
works^ to have had power over Egypt in the time of
Joseph. (3^^) It still must appear remarkable how the noma-
dic tribes of theHyksos should have beoi able to overthrow the
powerful and well-established "ancient kingdom^' of Egypt.
Men accustomed to freedom fought with success against men
habituated to a long course of servitude, even though at that
period the victorious Arabian invaders were not, as they sub-
sequently were, animated by religious enthusiasnu Prom fear
of the Assyrians (races of Arpachsad), the Hyksos established
the fortress of Avaris as a place of arms on the eastern branch
of the Nfle. Perhaps this circumstance may indicate a suc-
cession of advancing warlike masses^ or a movement of nations
directed towards the west. A second event, which occurred
fully 1000 years afterwards, is that which Diodorus(^^)
relates from Gtesias. Ariseus, a powerful Himyarite prince,
entered into alliance with Ninus on the Tigris, and with
him, defeated the Babylonians, and returned to his home in
Bouth^n Arabia laden with rich spoils. (^^)

Although, on the whole, the prevailing mode of life in
Hedjas, and that followed by a large and powerful portion
of the people, was a free and pastoral one, yet even tiioi

210 EFOCHft m THB HISTORT OF THE OOimSMPIJLTION

tile towns of Medba and Mooca (the latter with its higUf
aEicient and ^gmatical sacred Kaaba) were distinguished
as places of importance visited by fore%n nations. In
districts adjacent to the sea, or to the caravan roads
which act as rrrer vallies, tile complete savage wildness
^gendered by entire insulation never prevailed. Oibbon^
whose conception of the diiferent circumstances of man-
Kind is always so clear^ notices the important distindaon
to be drawn between the nomadic life of the inhabitants of
the Arabian ]^)eninsula, and that of the Scythians described
by Herodotus md Hippocrates; since among the latter, no
part of the pastoral population ever settled in towns, whereas
in the great Arabian peninsula, the inhabitants of ike country
have always kept up intercourse with the inhabitants of the
towns, who they regard as descended from the same original
race as themselves. {^^) In the Kii^ez Steppe, a portion of
the plains inhabited by the ancient Scythians (Scoloti and
Sacae) and exceeding Germany in superficial extent, (^^ej qo
town has existed far thousands of years; yet at the time of mj
Siberian joum^, the number of tents ^ourtes or kibitkos)
in the three wandering hordes still exceeded 400,000, indi-
cating a nomadic population of two millions. I need not
enter more folly on the influence which such differences, in
regard to the greater or less insulation of nomadic life, most
have exercised cm the national aptitude for mental eultivauon,
even supposing an equality of origmal disposition and
capaciiy.

In the noble and richly-gii ted Arab race^ the internal dis*
position and aptitude lor mental cultivation concur with the
external circumstances to which I have adverted, — I mean the
natural features of the country, and the ancient commercial

Of THB UKIVEBSE.— (FHB ABABIANS. 211

inteicoxine of the coasts with highly -ci?i]ised neighbooring
statesi — ^m explaining how the irruptions intoSyria and Fersi^
and at a later period the poaseasion cS Egypt^ conld have
80 rapidly awak^ed in the conquerors a love for the sciences,
and a disposition to original investigation* We may per*
cdve that, in the wond^fnl arrangement of the order of the
wovld, the Christian sect of the Nestorians, who had exerted
a very important influence on the diffusion of knowledge,
became also of use to the Arabians before the latter came to
the learned and controversial city of Alexandria; and even
that Nestorian Christianity was enabled to penetrate far into
eastern Asia under the protection of armed Islam. The
Arabians were first made acquainted with Greek literature
through the Syrians, (3^7) a cognate Semitic race, who had
received this knowledge hardly a century and a half be*
fore from the Nestorians. Physicians trained in Grecian
establishments of learning, or in the celebrated medical
school founded at Edessa in Mesopotamia by Nestorian
Christians, were living at Mecca in the time of Mahomet^
and connected by family ties with himself and Abu-Bekr.

The school of Edessa, a prototype of the Benedictine
schools of Monte-Cassino and Salerno, awakened a disposition
for the pursuit of natural history, bj ihe investigation of
^ healing substances in the mineral and vegetable kingdoms/'
Wh^ tiiis school was dissolved from motives of fanaticism
imder Zeno the Isaurian, the Nestorians were scattered into
Persia, where they soon obtained a poUtical importance, and
founded a new and much-frequented medicinal institution
at Chondisapur, in Khusistan. They succeeded in carrying
both their scientific and Uterary knowledge and their religion

far as China, under the dynasty of the Thaug, towards

812 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOBT OF THE OONTEHFLATION

the middle of the se7eiith centazy, 572 years after Buddhisim
had arrived there from India.

. The seeds of westam cultivation scattered in Persia by
learned monks^ and by the philosophers of the school of the
later Platonists at Athens persecuted by Justinian, had
exercised a beneficial influence on the Arabians during thdr
Asiatic campaigns. However imperfect the scientific know-
ledge of the'Nestorian priests may have been, yet, by its
particular medico-pharmaceutical direction, it was the more
effectual in stilnulating a race of men who had long liveS
in the enjoyment of the open face of nature, and pres^ved'a
Rasher feeling for every kind of natural contemplation, than
the Oreek and Italian inhabitants of cities. That which
gives to the epoch of the Arabians the cosmical importance
which we are endeavouring to illustrate, is very much con-
nected with thijs feature of the national character. The
jir$bians are, we repeat, to be r^arded as the propw
founders of the physical sciences, in the sense which we
sre now accustomed to attach to the ta:m.

Xn the world of ideas, the internal connection and enchain-
metit of all thought renders it indeed always difiicult to
altach an absolute begmning to iany particular period of time.
Separate points of knowledge, as well as processes by whidi
knowledge may be attained, are, it is true, to be seen scattaied
in TBxe instances at an earlier period. How wide is the
difference between Dioscorides who separated mercury from
cinnabar and the Arabian chemist Djeber; and between
Ptolemy ais an investigator of optics and Alhazen ! But the
foundation of physical studies, and of the natural sciences
thetnselves, first begins when newly opened paths are pursued
by many at once, although with unequal success. After ilift

OF THB VNIYEBSE. — TUX ASABIAITS* 21S

8im^ contempiatioB of natuie, after the observation of sock
phenomena on the surface of the earih or in the heavens
as present themselves spontaneonalf to the eje, oomesf
investigation, the seeking after that which exists, the
measurements of magnitudes and of the duration of motion.
The earliest epoch of puch an investigation of nature, chiefly
limited, however, to the oi^pmic wodd, was that of Aristotle.
In the progressive knowledge of physical phenomena^ in the
searching out of the powers of nature, there stilL remains a
third and higher stage, — ^that of the knowledge of the action
of these powers or forces in producing new forms of matter,
and of the substances themselves which are set at liberty in
order to enter into new combinationa. The means which
lead to this liberation belong to the calling forth at will of
phenomena, or to ^'eipmment/'

It is on this last stage, whidi was almost wholly untrodden
by the ancients, that the Arabians principally distinguished
themsdves. Their country enjoys throughout the dimato
necessary for the growth of palms, and in its larger portion
possesses a tropical climate, as the tropic of Cancer crosses the
penin^da nearly from Maskat to Mecca;«»it is therefore a
{lart of the world in which the higher vital energy of 1^
vegetable kingdom offers an abundance of aromas, of
balsamic juices, and of substances injurious as well a^
beneficial to man. The attention oi the people must havt
been early directed to the productions of their native soil, ana
to those obtained by commerce from the coasts of Malabar,
G^lon, and eastern Africa. In these portions of the torrid
zone organic forms are '^ individualised'' in the smallest
geographical spaces, each of which offers peculiar productions,
•—and thus incitements to the intercourse of men with nature

£14 EPOOHS IN THE mSTORY OY THE OOllTFEMPLATION

were increased and multipUed. Great desire was felt to
beoome acqaamted with articles so predous and so impcntoit
to medicine, indostry, and tiie Ixaxaj of the temple and the
pdace; to distingnisli them caiefdlly from each other; and
to find out thdr natire place, which was often artfoHy con-
c^ed from motiyes of covetousness. Nnioerons carayan
loads, departing from the o(»nmerdal mart, G^rhs,
on' the Persian Gialf, and bom the incense district of
Yemen, trairersed the whole interior dl Arabia to Phoenicia
and Syria; and tiins the names of these mnch-desired pro-
ductions,, and the interest felt ia tiiem> beeame generally
difiosed.

The science of mateiiaixiedica> thte ftmndation of which was
laid in the Alezandrisa sehool by Dioscorides, is, in its scien*
tific form, a creation of the Aiabians^ who, however, hsd
previously access to a rich scarce of instruction, the
most ancient of all, that of the Indian physicians, (^^j
The apothecar/s art was indeed formed by the Arabians,
and the first official authoritative rules for the prepara-
tion of medicines were taken from them, and were difinsed
through southern Europe by the school of Salerno. Pharmacy
and ibid materia medica, the first requirements of the healing
(krt, conducted to the studies of botany and chemistry.
IVom the confined sphwe of utility and of single application,
the study of plants gradually expanded into a wider and freer
field: it examined the structure of organic tissues; the
oonnaction of this structure with the laws of their develop-
ment; and the laws according to which vegetable {c^aas are
distributed gec^raphically over the earth's surf ace, according
to differences of climate and of elevation.

After the Asiatic conquests, for the maintenance of whidi

GF THE TJVinSBBE. — THE ARABIANS* 215

Bftgdad subsequently became a ceutrol point of power and
civilisation, the Arab% in the short space of seventy years^
extended their conquests over Egypt, Cyrene, and Carthage,
and through the whole of northern Africa to the distant
Iberian peninsula. The low state of cultivation of the armed
masses and of their leaders, may indeed have rendered occa-
sional outbreaks of a rode spirit not altogether improbable.
The tale of the burning of the Alexandrian library by Amra,
40,000 baths being heated for six months by its contents,
rests, however, solely on the testimony of two writers who
lived 580 years after the supposed event. (^29) We need not
here describe how, in. more peaceful times, but without
the mental cultivation of i^e mass of the nation having
attained any free development, in the brilliant epoch of
Al-Mansur, Harun Al-£aschid, Mamun, and Motasem, tiie
courts of princes and the public sdentifio institutions
were able to assemble a considerable number of highly
distiDgaished men. We cannot attempt in these pages to
characterise the extensive, varied, and unequal Arabic litera*
tuxe ; or to distinguish that which springs fitun the hidden
depths of the particular organisation of a race and the natural
unfolding of its faculties, from that which is dependent on.
external incitements and accidental conditions. The solution
of this important problem belongs to a different sphere of
ideas. Our historical considerations are limited to a frag-*
mentary notice of what the Arabian nation has >mtributed,
by mathematical and astronomical knowledge, and in the
physical sciences, to the more general contemplation of the
Universe.

The true results of investigation are indeed here, as el8P>
where in the middle ages, alloyed by alchemy, sup;;>Dsed

2 16 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOET OF THB CONTEMi LATIOX

magical arts> aad mystic fancies ; but the Arabians^ inces-
sant in their own independent endeavours^ as well as labo-
rious in appropriating to themselves by translations the
fruits of earlier cultivated generations^ have piroduced much
which is truly their own, and have enlarged the view of
nature. Attention has been justly called {^^) to the dif-
ferent circumstances in respect to cultivation of the invading
and immigrating Germanic and Arabic races. The former
became civilized after their immigration ; the latter brouglit
with them from their native country not only their religion,
but also a highly polished language, and the tender blos-
soms of a poetry which has not been altogether without
influence on the Provengal poets and the Minnesingers.

The Arabs possessed qualities which fitted them in a
remai^able manner for obtaining influence and dominion
over, and for assimilating and combining, different nations,
from the Euphrates to the Guadalquivir, and southward to
the middle of Africa : they possessed a mobility unexampled
in the history of the world ; a disposition, very different
from the repellent Israelitish spirit of separation, to effect a
fusion with the conquered nations; and yet, notwithstanding
perpetual change of place, to preserve unimpaired their own
national character, and the traditional remembrances of their
original home. No nation can shew examples of more
extensive land journies undertaken by individuals, not always
for conmiercial objects, but also for collecting knowledge :
even the Buddhistic priests fromThibet and Ghiaa, even Marco
Polo, and the Christian missionaries who were sent to the
Mogul princes, moved over a smaller range of geographical
space. Through the many relations subsisting between
the Arabs and India and China, for their conquests had ex-

OF THE UKIVlfiSSE. — THE AHABTANS. 217

tended under the Caliphate of the Ommaiades by the end of
the seventh century (***) to Kashgar, CJaubul, and the
Punjab)^ important portions of Asiatic knowledge reached
Europe. The acute researches of Beinaud have shewn how
much may be derived from Arabic sources^ for the knowledge
of India. Although the invasion of China by the Moguls for
a time disturbed the communications across the Oxus^ (^^)
the Moguls themselves soon became a uniting link to the
Arabs, who^ by their own observations^ and by laborious
researches^ have illustrated the knowledge of the earth's sur*
face from the coasts of the Pacific to those of Western Africa,,
and from the Pyrenees to Edrisi's marsh-land of Wangara
in the iaterior of Africa. The geography of Ptolemy was
translated into Arabic^ according to Pr&hn^ by the command
of the Caliph Mamun between 813 and 838 ; and it is even
not improbable that some fragments of Marinus of Tyre
which have not come down to us may have been used in the
translation. (^33)

Of the long series of distinguished geographers which
Arabic literature affords^ it is sufficient to name the earliest
and the latest : — ^El-Istachri, {^^) and Alhassan (Johannes
Leo Africanus). At no period before the discoveries of the
Portuguese and Spaniards, did the knowledge of the earth's
surface receive a larger accession. Only fifty years aft»
the death of Mahomet the Arabs had reached the extreme
western coast of Africa at the harbour of Asfi. Whether,
subsequently^ when the adventurers known under the name
of Almagrurin navigated the '' mare tenebrosum/' the
islands of the Guanches were visited by Arab ships, as I long
thought probable, has recently been rendered again doubtful.
(*«*) The quantity of Arabic coins found buried in th«

tl8 EPOCHS Hr THE HIS5t>Kt 07 T&B OOlfTEUnLiTIOir

cottntries about the Baltic, and in the extreme Ncarth k
fieandinaviay are not to be attribtited to ooBuneroe by4iea
ftapaAj so called^ but to the far extended inland tn&c of
the Ajabs. (336)

Geography did net ooHtmue to be restricted to the
enumeration of countries and thar boundaries^ and to
positions in latitocfe and kmgitude, (whidi were multiplied
by Abul-Hassan) ; (337) it led a people familiar with nature to'
eonfiider the organic productions of different places^ and more
cspedally those of the vegetable world. Thehorror which the
IbllowerH of Islam have for anatomical examinatioiis jnre^
i^ented all progress in the nataral history of animals. Hhej
W€le ecmtent with appropriating to th^iaselves by traoalstioii
n^ttt they eould find in Asistotle (338) and Galen; yet
A^cenna's history of animals^ (whieh is in the Soyal library
at !Paris)^ (33S) differs horn that c^ Aristotle. As a botaiuel
#e may name Ibn-Baithar of Malaga^ (3^0) ^[10^ fromhis joumies
into Greece^ Persia^ India^ and Egypt^ may also be regained
as an example of the endeavour to compare by direct obserra-
tion the productions of different regions, — of the East and of
the West. The , study of medicines was, however, always
the point from whkh these endeavours proceeded ; it was
through it that the Arabs long swayed the schools d
€3mstendom, and for its improvement and comjdetion
Ibn*Sina (Avicenna), a native of Affschena near Bc^aia,
Ibn-Boschd (Avait)es) oi Gordova, the younger Serapon of
Syri% and Mesne of Maridin on the Euphrates, avafled
themselves of all the materials furnished by the Arabian
enavan and sea^ traffic. I have piuposely cited these widely-
separated birth-pkoes of celebrated «nd learned Arabs, h^
ctttyiie th^ l»iiig vividly before us the manner in which, ivi

tlaBi^aMwbaiitnqmitionsoCithiflrtG^ of mm^ natoialJuMMvw-

and ihB^mok id: ideas edarged by siaMlta0$cM9^Knlftrp«)^*
oecidiiig fiomrxaaBT; qvadicm^.

' Hm homkigt ppsseased bj^ a mam aaekoitly'^cukHrated i
ppffeyiheJndiaiuij )PM:Bbo dmvm Ute. the fiuneT^iaBl^^;
sef^eral iurpottent wotka, p^fobabljr tboM known undesr tbft:
smwUBiahw^T mmeoi of. Tsehfttaka aikd-. 8iuumiA# (^^) wem;
tiaiidaked.'froBi.Saasecit.iiito AxabiQi. Avioeiinfit. a mait^l,.
ottnficebeiudve loand^ and wba has olbwx> been coKtpanod tof
i^bi^i^ MdgDi]s> affords, in bb Matm».Mfidioft:a».inBRf{^
steikii^dnsteaoe of tbis. iofloenoe of ladisA' litesatarey ia^
shpOTg hanarff 'wqaeiimkiei, as tbe leacoed Boyl^aremaek^,
with . the .Deo&ta (Cedri» deodvara) (^^2); of ihf< wotmy;;
Bimb^UEJ^^'wkaihp,u}ciAie 11th 9^imj^.hui ^sem^dlf
nmw been arisited b]r tniy AnJs^m calbrit.byrH

ite truB;Saiiaeriii luiQe^ . and afiaaka of it «A<alQ%; vposim^sti
jVflnper>.£raiiv.whiQh: oil o£ toip^tinfr was. obtoined^ Hie
sona: of. Asremws lived at! tiier eourt; q£ th& Tiiiqpaiii»>
Bxd^de n^^tibe g«eat ppaBee.of.tbe hoHte cf Hoh/ii:^tauffie»>,
who ^w«a iBdebted ios< past, oi lash kudwk^j^ of Bati]xsl.his^
tojT jr to Gi»Qi]»Bioc^a . iidtk leaned* Arabs, asd Sg^tniskr
Jsms), C^) The.C^liph Abderrahiaaii cfttabUshfidaJbotmcaL
ga]3deu;ai;Ck»9dev%(3^^) aod sent tiaycUeciN into S^aaad^
QiUiierpaite of (Ajsia^io.Gelkotxare^ plaints.. H&j^bntadyneacr
the palace of Eissafah^ the first date tree^ which he^ceter
b«aieain.sttfliQft'£Edi.o{.tendei;.iep^ and: bngpg^ior his
miivt hoB^ySamaacnauu.

Btsb the jx^oat impcuteatr infiuencG, exected b^rthB Acair*
bkns on: tbe^ geaecal ; koosdedg^ of. nataie^ . waa.ija.tfa& jg^^
gfmhjott cafioaistef ;, w^h . tbeii labours oomarncedx a.,ii«»i

TOL. n. Q

5IS0 B?OCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THB COOTBMPLATIOir

efpoeh in that science. Alchemistic and new Plttonic 61^
cies were, it is true, as nearly allied with their chemistry, as
was astrology with their astronomy; but the demands of
pharmacy, and the equally pressing requirements of thu
technical arts, led to discoveries which were favoured some-
times by design, and sometimes, through a happy accident,
by metallurgic attempts connected with alchemy. The
labours of Geber, or rather Djaber (Abu-Mussah-Dschafac
al-Kufi), and the much later ones of Bazes (Abu-B^
Arrasi), have had the most important results. This epoch is
marked by the preparation of sulphuric and nitric acids, {^\
aqua regia, preparations of mercury and other metallic
oxides, and by the knowledge of alcoholic {^^) processes of
fermentation. The first foundation and earliest advances of
the science of chemistry are of so much the greater impor-
tance in the history of the contemplation of the universe^
because thereby the heterogeneity of substances, and the
nature of forces or powers not manifested visibly by motion,
were first recognised; and the students of nature, no longer
looking exclusively to the Pythagorean Platonic perfection
of form, perceived that composition was also deserving of
regard. Differences of form and differences of composition
are the elements of all our knowledge of matter; they aie
the abstractions by which, through measurement and ana^
lysis, we believe that we can form a conception of the entire,
universe.

It would be difficult to determine at present what portion
of knowledge the Arabian chemists may have derived, either
from their acquaintance with Indian literature (writing*^
on the BaSayana), p*^) from the primitive technical arts bi
the ancient Egyptians, from the comparatively modenp,

bj THE UOTVBRSE. — THE AEABUNS. iit

^chemistic rules of the Pseudo-Democritus and the Sophist
Synesius, or even from Chinese sources through the medium
6f the Mogols. According to the most recent and veiy
careful investigations of a celebrated orientalist, Reinand,
the invention of gunpowder, (^®) and its application to
projectiles, are not to be ascribed to the Arabians : Hassan
Al-Rammah, who wrote between 1285 and 1295, was not
acquainted with this application; while, as early as th#
twelfth century, 200 years therefore before Berthold Schwarz,
a kind of gunpowder was used at Rammelsberg in thb
fiarz, for blasting rocks. The invention of an air thermo-
meter has been ascribed to Aviceimay. on the strength of a
notice by Sanctorius ; but this notice is very obscure, and
six centuries elapsed before Galileo, Cornelius Dreddel, and
the Academia del Cimento, by the establishment of an exact
measure of temperature, created the important means of
penetrating into a world of almost unknown phsenomena,
whose regularity and periodicity excite our astonishment;
and of recognising the cosmical connection of effects taking
place in the atmosphere, in the superimposed aqueous strata
of the ocean, and in the interior of thie earth. Among the
advances which physical science owes to the Arabians, it
will be sufficient to name Alhazen's work on the refraction
of rays, which may indeed have been partially derived frond
Ptolemy's optical researches ; and the knowledge and first
application of the pendulum as a measure of time (^*^) by
the great astronomer Ebn- Junis.

The purity and rarety disturbed transparency of the Arabian'
slcy had in a peculiar manner drawn the attention of the Arab
Kice, in their eariiest uncultivated state in their native land, to
ttie motions of the heavenly bodies; foi yfe find thai, besides

ibb'wc^l^ of. the jiflmat Jopitar otioi^ iba/Baelmiiltf^.tti
tribff of the . Asediifeei wofsUpped the •phmek Merooryy wloAk;.
Irculiiisiprouiiikytotlie8oiiff.orbyisxaxi^^ iSFotwitlb

staadmgi^his^'howerer^the distingiiisbed sdcnt^ aetififyoC
the cinUsdl iAxabiaiisi&fJl dbgaari»&«iU^
msatber to bensoribdl to Qhddafttt.ftBd Ifidiaa iwflnomwL
Atmo&g]aerie' candiiioiB* oan oaoJ^^ cttooonigi^ md fimmt- auk
]g[iii«T]Jts^i»h®ire a di8pa8ition.towafdfi^6i{k4aylMeir poAowi
bjr the oiigmdi.BifiyAit^diMniieiftsr o{> rivUf jp^todLz&eo^ce

Horn. R&w,mmf disl^dteof tiDpical^Ammoi^ at Cbmaiiii
CofQ^ . tmd B&ytA^^ ivbem mmr mfwn hSki, enj&g^' aaa; adtam^
s)43fir& eveoiBioie tittn^aceat tban that.a{>£gr()ty AxMst^
BoHiawl Thft.dimrte(rf.tltete^H»,;«ad the 6toEii.l.»
SDQitjr of the vatolt: of heavooy. resg^idailf vith stan^saai
StebulBB,, are indeed' ti#f«r ' irithaat aome zofiueafie ott»tta
dispositi(»i9 of. laeai btit tUejorer fraitfiiLui inteUctttyal
i^axdtajf; aad iinailatbe humim iHuidtDlabonrin.tbe.dMh»
Ibpmeat at mathenmtifial kteaa^, exdyin^ttire' aa imp^«IiB6riii
^en, indegeQdexLtiijf of eUmaie^ hjr ottur Gftdsea bdcfafgag
fiSaex to tke character of^ the imee; on to extanaLcieoaoif
8toi]ie«s:|i as^ foae exam^k^^ whcitre the- exesei diirinou.of tine
hieciaiiea.aB< object of soosal BooeaBit;, fiyr tha salasfaelkiiivaf
taligioo^ or of -«igK!Bi:dtiu?id reqciiiieiafiHtea . Attei^eedetdidbaB
OPiamivdaL BaiioBa Ukethe Bh aDd<iiatioiv»*iil»rtiv

^fffj^ums^mA^CiAldmas fond^ o£ Mddteaixase aiod m^
stractions of all kinds^ and mmsh aeoustoasted' to- gfoifeil
masOsym mi* measuaremjeatsi emgiriealt. ndessr^ of^ aiatiuaiiic
a&d of /geomebrjr. Trnflr^" eatljr dbooreredj; hoi. the^. Ml
(nd]i» fin^ma^ the. way ibf the iiiatheBurtididi affii/aatiran^
ttioa^ adaaaes^ Jbs is i^ laiiySt miUirsrfSo&} faas> zMhaA*

^litiieb cbacaolMs&ike euivemeots ci- the ka&reiily bodies, an;
aaeenito'be^ 4is iit '^vrere^ TeiMted in it^resbial jineiuiiBciiQt^
Mid-^tfaAt'SMa ^aeik to^diaoomr i& iiieae abo^ t<» iuse ^tkc
ttcpKessiMOL <^>oiff'^;Bettt peet^ tke "^'fised'Uodittiguq; pokL^
&'^'4Um«te8, the oonvi^iMQ'Of «tke T^uktitjr of vtheipk-
Ditaiy movenefit0j'«iid^f theb 8ubjed%<» to Jaw>«^
bas.-coatdbuted Qiore tjnea <aiqr thiag abe to ikiil iBien .to
Beakvtiie fipse subjedsm io.kw sndocdigrj iutiks jmdsiA-
Hana < ol :tbe .«eiiil oma, in the oaalktiDiis of ike aw, im
tiie.) periodical nwrob of .the 'OMigEAtio ^needie, and in ^tbe
;diitdbiaitioB'of v«g0tdbld«ad ttoimalilife on itiKtcRO&Beiyf
^e'gjbke.

^Hie iufaUons \iire» ia poweBsion x>f .LidiHn ipIaaBtaiy
Ita^las. (9^0) OS eaiiy as iisud «ud jof tive eighili .oeatury. .1
4i0fi^€Jieady matttumed that the Sc^ruta; the^uioieiKt epitom
tisompTiaing ail tiie nediciiial ^kaovrlsdge 'Of ' thia Jndtanij,
Me i3»iiilaled i^y ieamed imaa babfiging ito ihe oouit
^ ttibe'Oal^ Hanson ^l-4£asahid>-*Ta pr^iof of the :ea%
a^tcodnatioa^Df Sansarit Jiitesatore. .Tbe-AfabianifiiatheoM-
^iksian Albjnmiii»ni>>faioaself to India 'to .atudymatonoif^'
4h{xe. -Mis ^mitixiff, >mbmk .have « only <f€a^ lately JMsoame
faaoesfitt^ 4io;nB, :$hew JK»ifr m^ he jw^s .aeqaainted <^th the
4fiofmtry> the4nditiQmiy.aad theeti:teBQ^ Of the

Inditas. (^^^)

But how«^p» 'tauah ihe :^biBii mhoamness noej haite
^ewned-to^aailUN; oirinUssed^tiationsiiandfeapeQkllytto the Indian
^mi fftJfixandria& -«ahA(>lBj 'they still oanat *be nagaxded ^
^J»Ti])g CKn^^erablyaida^ed .the domain itf.«Btn»nomy^'hy
v;^ab^pf»iUidT^pmctk0l*^^ *of «aind>riby4te gveat^-moBahar
imsfA tha 'dz«»^timi a£'4faaix «obm?wiaail4i by tlnar aDpNiine-

924 EPOCHS IN TBX HISTORY OF THB OOmXMBJjATlOV

m&A& ia ioatniments for angular jaeasurements, and bj
thefbr zealous endeavours to correct the earlier tables bj
carefol comparisoA with the heavens. Sedillot has recog-*
lused in the seventh book of the Almagest of Abul-Wefa
the important inequality in the moon's motion^ which
voiiashes at the Syzygies and Quadratures^ and has its greatest
value at the Octants^ and which under the name of ^^ variation'^
has long been regarded as a discovery of Tycho Brahe. {^^)
Ebn- Junis's observations at Cairo have become particularly
important for the perturbations and secular changes of th^
iffbits of the two great planets^ Jupiter and Saturn. {^^)
A measurement of a degree of the meridian^ executed by the
orders of the CSaliph Al-Mamun in the great plain of
fiiindschar betnreen Tadmor and BaklsB, by observers whose
names have been preserved to us by £bn-Junis^ is less
importaiyi lor its result than for the evidence which it affords
4>f the scientific cuUivation of the Arabian race.

We must also attribute to this cultivation^ in the West^
'ihe astronomical congress held in Toledo in Christian Spain
und^AJiphonso of Castile^ in which the Sabbi Isaac Eba
•Sid Hazbh oQonpied a prominent pkce; and in the far East,
tilxe Obs^vatory provided with many instruments established
by Bschan Hol^^> the grandson of Ghengis-khan, on^a
mountain niear Meragha^ in which Nassir-Eddiu of Tus in
Khorasan made his observations. . These details are deserv-
ing of notice in the history of the contemplation of the
Uiaveraev because they remind us in a lively manner of what
the AraliAfais have effected in the extension of knowledge
DYer wide pcwrtions of the earth's surface, and in the accu-
mulation of numerical results ; results whieh contributed
matorially ia th^ {^eat epoch of Kepler and T^oho Brahe to

or THE TJNTVBESB. — THB ABABIAKS. 225

tiie foundation of theoretical astronomy^ and to a correet
view of the motionk of the heavenly bodies in space. The
light kindled in the part of Asia inhabited by Tatar nations
extended in the fifteenth century to the westward as far as
Samarcand^ where Ulugh Beig a descendant of Timour
established an astronomical observatory^ and a gymnasium
of the class of the Alexandrian Museom^ and caused a
Star catalogue to be prepared founded entirely on new and
independent observations, p**)

Besides the tribute of praise which we have here paid to
the advances made by the Arabians in the knowledge of
nature, both in the terrestrial and celestiBl spheres, we have
still to allude to the additions which, in the solitary paths
of the development of ideas, they made to the treasuiy (X
pure mathematical knowledge. According to the most
decent works written in England, IPrance, and Gfermany (***)
on the histoiy of mathematics, the algebra of the Arabians
is to be regarded as ** having originated from the confluence
of two streams which had long flowed independently 6i
each other, one Indian and one Greek.'' The compendium
of algebra written by the command of the Oaliph Al-Mamun
by the Arabian mathematician Mahommed Ben-Musa (the
Chowarezmian) is based, as my deceased learned frienS
iViedrichEosen has shewn, (*^) not on the woAs of Diophan-
tus, but on Indian knowledge ; and even as early as under
Almansor at the end of the eighth century Indian astrono-
mers were called to the brilliant court of the Abas-
sides. According to Castri and to Colebrooke, Mophantus
was not translated into Arabic until the end of the tenth
century by Abol-Wftfe Bu3^ani. The Arabians were in-
debted to the Alexandrian sdiool for tliat whic^ we miss in

JM EPocsBtiK ^uu^ mnnv of^isb^ owibhvla.tion

iMVHdi^MiL J3gr)the>isco«8Wfe'i^ bom yft^ipnsStiomiM^

ilieip Qwrm«wriafl^8y^ piiwed- in Urn ttrdlfiii.isciilbarf fromiAi
JLssdbsrta aie.fiftroyMW l^iefotare <of )tbe mUilk ageditkMiih
JohflDiibss.HiqpaileinM ''^foiii

digebslaGal^workg<a£«ihetInlyiaS' se^ftiGl.tfie^|e!iiaM&» sdOfcM
!ot.jn4etenBipate.tttaatkim waAf^Ammm

highly finished treatment of tfafid rfr^tlte'tfteaAJl . j|gp<)^ Aii

4)if viheJbdiWv*iisritBfea bad feeflffi. ftHiflb'ttai»K>i m to fflatvpctts
iM&4»ntetieft oadiepy instead of ody^in .4)iuv0«t!iitiBi^; H^
fttugfc.batte aid»d.iiie.dgv^l(g|«|pc«t.4rf gi»deitt»«»ijfeyafe/* '
wXh&i^aU i&^P4»ia4md oa^ *£ig>biat^^

ladiiia Btiioerioal fihaiaciers

Mrhichrhad led to theit aQq[aai»f4gim iritii lDdttft4Jgdbia«. rSo^
wmsTj-wereeiBployed^^ihat .penod aa.r€fveiu]6 xoUeckos w
theilndos^; .and the tuse of .Indian aumbeRs .becani0,g»Hiil
amo^lggt . tbe:Ai«b tew&uoQjoS&cea^^^woA ext€Eid8dia!N<»liyeQi
A&ic9y43|^posi9kerto ^tiae ; coAst of JSicaJj. .Nemecihalesjaiy t]»
proicwuid and.fmportamt.higtorifial myeirtigatioii&todbichri
dij^ifpgiKiBhed mathematician^ M. Chaales, iiiKaa Jbd^ ^-^
ooixectijitcrpretatioiL.of the jsoirCidlfid.rPjrdagoieaa taU^
the, ^geoiQietij of Boethius, (^ . resder^ it mare» thaojin^babk
that the.Ghnstiadi&ia the We$t were aequaii^ied eiseikeailiar
than the.Arabiass. Kith' the Indian ^^stesi ^cf^numeratiaRS
the-Ufaeof thernine,%nises, havi^ theif vakuesdeUyesiiBfii
Igrfposition, bd!Og»]aionm by.tlMm ladeir tbeAnaoae^iOf^tta
qfatem^of the AJaacns.

. JEtejpiaMnfc iwdcis iitt^tkeifboafntjeataMgifiiomfiAjr

jmo^Bmrnm i^reaotttod.i&aSJbd .aid ia dtte cto ilbe^Am-
4faiib ties Liwiftiaiisr«tiPaBs, y«id .tiK.i/yndMii&tite
Wissenschaftea at Berlin; (^^) but in in iMitoiii»1iyi<Jikm,
JAt«hieh mtlrftttiillitnniiiifnstto Ae idiMO^witcl, tii&quiiion
0mmk ^Hbetlwitei lughlgriiqgaMna (MEti&oal adaauif «dMe
%if>cMitbvwhi«h(iaf p«HBiiMtii^ ^die iSdmnl Ahioasf^nid
^lib&tShlfiiftTpw^lithe sitemr <»f ::A«ia, ^vams^pftiAleiyitti-
49(fW:«fd<iQtAe ^JEM^aodim tke^Wett; 01 inrbetin, ikamffi

it\m»(i» >Jte *«w^ tfraoi ike ^mstcnxipaiBsbla df .Jadia'itD
JUffiraafhi^j 4ndrSttbiQqttintly9 mjthci rmwiil cfctlii 1 iinwj
^f .the .Pyrttagfwwwif^ wts vqmBettiad iias ia. diaaoYuy.jtf
iliMf . founder. We r n«ed JMt«diHrcU ab:. AejMt]aB.^sHlil%
0£ aDflieatvielflbiofis \nkl1tMib10b weiane taJJiriymrwiqiiiitodH
iM«iisi|( «alMiitod piior to .tlie''60tii Q^rnqviaL ./Wib^aBD^
«Ke not s^{p«8e4ha^> iuider(Arfl0a6e.t«F(ttniikr>«a&li,£liB'
4WDPe>€nmbiBrti»n* ef ^ickas. siay.lnve'piesarted'AknHUMlwB
HPfflWitgJyt to .bigl4yHg>^^ nations^ of diloDeDtiiaca F

The atgebta^iof t^j ArtbiuBSf, ineladiag'iiiikititiicgrlHd
Modwd fioHiitibe (Greeks raad'Ae^Indiaiis msiiAadUAMf
liad' tboBMlfes ^ari^inatodi * ao^miiiiuBteidsog :its igtaai} drf^
MOjyy. an^^jubetio! AotatiOD^ .«saMMed ^> facMficial rinfartmawi
i|dogAhatHUiaHt,pettdddliK»yti^

tiieir wtif^i^kMd^ by tkdahrexhiAsife4)aauneicial. JBtereouBse^
•«MACTatod:the naexif .theilDiHiL:$yitei of ..numbers from
Bfi9Uifi.dKJBa8titO'iODi^ :Bath*iscv

aawirtiaiiflpflaewtoibutad ijpfmmBhSlf^ aklM^gh ^an idiffewat

i^ EPOCHS JS ^EHS BKrOBY W THE OOKCSinPLAnOK

wajB^ to adhranoe the mathematioal part of natoral know-
ledge^ aad to fadlitate the access to fidds which without
these aids mast hvre remained unopened^ in astronomy^ in
QftioSf in physical geography, in thennonietricsj and in the
theory of magnetism.

In studying the history of natioiu^ tihe question has offten
been raised, what would have been the effect on the course
of events if Carthage had conquered Some^ and had sub-
jected to its dominion the European West : Wilhehn von
Humboldt (3^) has remarked, that ^'we might ask with
equal justice, what would have been the state of our present
intellectual cultivation, if the Arabs had continued the
exclusive possessors of science as they were for a long
period, and had spread themselves permanently over the
West? In both cases it appears to me we can scarcdy
doubt that the result would have been less favourable. It
is to the same causes which led to the Soman universal
empire, namely, to the Soman mind and character and not
to external accidents, that we owe the influence of the
Bomans on our civil institutions, our laws, our languages,
and our civilization. Through this beneficial influence, and
in consequence of our belonging to a kindred race, we have
been enabled to receive the impression of the Grecian mind
and Grecian language; whereas the Arabians only attached
themselves to the scientific results of Greek investigation in
natural history, physics, astronomy, and pure mathematics.''
The Arabians, by sedulous care in preserving the purity of
their native idiom, and by the ingenuity of their figurative
modes of speech, knew how to lend to the expression of
their feelings, and to the enunciation of noble and sage

OV TSK UNIYBB0B.<»^2HB ABABIAKS.

229

maxims^ the grace of poetic colomiBg; but judging from
"what they were under the Abassddes, even if they had built
on the sauM foundation of classical antiquity with which we
find them familiar^ they yet could never have produced those
works of sublime poetry and creative art which are the
boast of our European cultivation*

4U0

XPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THB CONTEMPLATION OF TUB
UNIVEESE. — OCEANIC DISCOVEUIES.

Epoch of the Oceanic Discoveries — Opening of the Western Hemi-
sphere-^Events, and Extension of different Branches of Scientific
Sjiowiedge, 'which prepared the way for the Oceanic DisooTeries.
— ColmnbiiB, Sebastian Cabot, and Yasco de Gama — America and
the Pacific Ocean — Cabrillo, Sebastian Vizcaino, Mendafia^ and
Quiros. — ^The rich abundance of materials for the foundation of
Physical Geography offered to the nations of Europe.

Ths fifteenth oentuiy belongs to those rare epochs in tiie
histoiy of the worlds in which all the efforts of the hmsaa
mind are invested with a determinate and common charae-
ter^ and manifest an unswerving direction towards a single
object. The unity of these endeavours^ the success with
which they were crowned, and the vigour and activity dis-
played by entire nations, give grandeur and enduring splen*
dour to the age of Columbus, of Sebastian Cabot, and of
Yasco de Gama. Intervening between two different stagea
of cultivation, the fifteenth century forms a transition epocb
belonging at' once to the middle »ges and to the comm^oe-
ment of modem times. It is the epoch of the greatest dis-
coveries in geographical space, comprising almost all degrees
of latitude, and almost every gradation of elevation of tha
earth's sur&ce. To the iohabitants of Europe it douUed

iiie infadlMiniieir «iA ptsrefMi ineitaneiiter to. tiie ia^RMnit^
iMfrttof: tb»f^iiailiia8ltsmi»Be6h IB. Ulek Qkjiical. acdi Hiaifaw

bob iritii: jtk[ mtm ppnpoiulcrakmg pener^, joreMKited. te
tbe: comluBaog mbid, th«.- stpvate SnmMh ol. MisiUfr. obf-
J9t^, flbA ttle^ Goft0iirrttrt«'{UBtU)m ol amaiatmg, poireitK os^
hratoc l%e.itf»itetfd iwa^r oSeattA tor thct cscntompbtiaBr

jnw»tiamt» to^n(iecti»esrflbcijd))g 'in! i^iitTii^jEmBSbbefiBiQf
1iK^efe. of. fniflj^ bidilasianresBU ofvactatl^ohsariFtitioa.. I&t^
malt'.afihtiavfipt abo offev^ to tbe ye^\maemiG/i^ej€x.iagm
mpoBs^j adoimd ^fitk'Gon9ldkifM» before xvaxmfki. A» L
I|«B)Giab«dj'niinarke(]$ afe nr peaDiid:h«»Ytliare beesfoAoiii
ItBWBukMf ii.^grtwp'alwudmicQr;af f fffi-fidleraw

tcwfe fisrtiiB fawKtitioii lof cnwipm'iati wi pliyniwri] .^mvafjbpr*
MMKft' aid^. thtt iwraD inbc gsogEiiffactl or pibjHMal dboai*
imtar apiprigflnwitiiib oni hmaaR! aAm^ Ai Itngfsrrfteidicfi
\iim'mBiOff!neii fmmm»'mm viimnMoi bjpra^grrakiin^
qjHWbin tliQi nednm of exdumgr^. a^iirelli asi lij^^ si hope
Hjwwriwiitg&e iMOahtrr aft mtoal piodix0tk>nF vdted has
HM or engogfaiHnli^abomsdl^itiieioif^
ofsodoBiOBy o£ ft TOignHmfto nBfeeUbrokiioHiii': * axidjtlitov^flKi
lib agonqr q|i alli &eM €a»att]^.€Bftraoidiiiaiy dn^ wmm
iWBPpghMin. anamasi and' cmiawn » iir tUa ouwlitioiiiofl an^
vrindar kngc tiqiatuuccd bjn au^ poctiiuat vb iMwrkntd^. 8mH
ittiiiftr'lite:aiaFaIoenasgri»ipvli^^
IVQgMttaipHttasttr cpDilt tina: stasAu onkiirflie iaiup

2S2 EPOCHS TS THE HISTOET 01^ THE ODmXHPLATIOK OT

ofmanlmd as marked bjimpoi^wntintdlectoalprogreds^ira
shall find on examination that preparations for this progress
had been made daring a long series of antecedent centoiies*
It does not appear to belong to the destinies of flie hmnaa
nee that all portions of it should suffer eclipse or obscura^p
iion at the same time. A preserving principle maintains
ihd ever living process of the progress of reason. The
^poch of Columbus attained the fulfilment of its objects so
rapidly^ because their attainment was the development of
fruitful germs^ which had been previously deposited by fl
series of highly gifted men^ who formed as it were a long
beam of light which we may trace throughout the whole of
what have been called the dark ages. A single century^ thd
thirteenth, shows us Soger Bacon, Nicolaus Scotus, Albertus
Magnus, and Yincentius of Beauvsds. The subsequent mors
general awakening of mental activity soon bore fruit in the
extension of geographical knowledge. "When, in 15£5,
Biego Sibero returned from the geographico-astronomical
oongress which was held at the Puente de Gaya near YelveSi
for the termination of differences irespecting the boundaries
of the two great empires of the Portuguese and Spanish
monarchies, the outlines of the New Continent had abeady
been traced from Terra del Puego to the coasts of Labia-
dor. On the western side, opposite to Asia, the advance*
were naturally less rapid; yet in 1548 Bodriguez Cabrillo
had already penetrated north of Monterey ; and after thii
great and adventurous navigator had met his death otf'
New California, in the Channel of Santa Barbara, the pilot
Bartholomew Perreto still led the expedition as far as the
4j8d degree of latitude, where Vancouver's Cape Oxford is
situated. The emulative activity of the Spaniards, Englisli,

THE UmV£ES£i.-r OCEANIC DISCOYERIBS. 288^

^d Forfcagiiese> was then so great, that half a oentary fsaS*
ficed to detenniue the outline or the ^neial direction of the
coasts of the Western Continent.

Although the acquaintance of the nations of Europe with
the western hemisphere is the leading subject to which this,
section is devoted, and around which are grouped the nu^
merous results which flow from it gf juster and grander
views of the Universe, yet we must draw a strongly marked
line of distinction between the first discovery of America
in its more northern portions, which is certainly to be
ascribed to the Northmen, and the re-discovery of the same
Continent in its tropical portions. Whilst the Caliphate .
of Bagdad still flourished under the Abassides, and while the
Samanides whose reign was so favourable to poetry bore sway in
Persia, America was discovered in the year 1000, byanorthern
route, as far south as 41 J° north latitude, by Leif, the son of.
Eric the Bed. (^62) The first but accidental step towards this,
discovery was made from Norway. In the second half of the
ninth century, Naddod, having sailed for the Faroe Islands^
which had previously been visited from Ireland, was driven
by storms to Iceland, and the first Norman settlement was
established there by Ingolf, in 875. Greenland, the eastern
peninsula of a land which is everywhere separated by the
sea from America proper, was early seen, (^63 J but was first
peopled from Iceland a hundred years later, in 983. The
colonization of Iceland, which had been first called by Nad-
dod, Snowland (Snjoland), now conducted, in a south- westerly
direction, passing by Greenland, to the New Continent.

The £aroe Islands and Iceland must be regarded as< ia-*
termediate stations, and as points of departure for enter-
prises to Scandinavian America.^ Inasim^ar manner the

Sn EPOCHS nr thv msrosr of the oofsmxmaios or

MialleinaD*'Ol th& 'tymos at Cartbuge had aiM: tUem W
reacb! tbe Straita of Gbdeira and the port of' Taftessoa^ taai?
Tartessus itself conducted this ^iterprisiDg lace front statmr
to station to Oen^ the Gauleon (ship iedttiil) of ^the- Gk»
thjaginiaiis;* (3M)

NotwitfastftndiBg th&ppoximify of tiie opposite coast* #
Labgador (HcUttlanditviiidaor'thegpeat)^ IBSyeaRrelafRNs^
fipom the first s^lement of Nortimieii in Usdand, to haPi
gceadL diJcoireij of 'Afioenca; so smaS wctt the tneaas wiudi^
IB this renNio aad desolaite part' of the gbbe^ » noUe^ eners
geti^ hoi not .wMiil^rase> weretible to deroio to naTsl co^
teqniaes^ Tim Im of coast eaUed Yinlandy fronr wfil*
vinos which were fbund' th«e^ by th« Germaii l^ka;.
chttrmed ' its disoov^i^rs hj the fertiEfy o£ its soil ' and thr
aooiklncsB oi its cGmate^ , compered with Icdand and GreeD^
land. T&e. tract which received from L^'thc name of
Yinl&ndit godai (Yinland'the good)^ ooo^rised the coasi'
line between Boston and New. Tork; therefore parts* of tSfir
piesent States of mi^ssaclhisetts^ Ehode Ishnd, and Cdtinec*
tkmty between the paralkk of CSvita Yeochia and Tecracni%
btti which corre^nded there to messn aanmai temperattues*
of 51'8^ and ST-a^'of Pahr. («5J' TKs was the principals*!^
tl^neni of the I^brtlnzien.. Hie colonists hsd'freqnentlj^to^
contend with a very warlike thbe of' Esqvdmanx^ then exv
tending nmeb faithear to the sonth, nndartbe naineof 9tiS>*-
linger. The first bishop of Greerdtod, I^ielTpsi, an Iceian-
d^r, undertook, in IIM.; a Ghristiaminissioato "Tiidand^ and'
the name of thecoibmsed'coontry has even- been meirwi&iii*
oH national songs of the natives of the PSroe lUancb. (••^

Tlie activity, conrage, and enterprssing spirit of* the atf-
T«ntarerB'fh»n Itelfmd and GTreezdand- is mamfbt^'^byilir

THE TJNrVBRSB. — OCBANIO DISOOYBElBe. '28&

fkct^ that after they had settled themselves so far south as
41 J® N. latitude^ they prosecuted their researches to th^
latitude of 72® 55' on the east coast of Baffm^s Bay; where, on
one of the Women's Islands, {^) north-west of the present
most northern Danish settlement of Upemavik, they set up
three stone pillars marking the limit of their discoveries*
The Runic inscription on the stone discovered there in the
autumn of 1824, contains, according to Eask and Finn
Magnusen, the date 1185- Prom this eastern coast of
Baffitf s Bay the colonists very regularly visited Lancaster
Sbtmdi and a part of Barrow's Strait, for purposes of
fishing, more than six centuries before the adventurous
vbyage of Pany. The bcaUty of the fishery is very dis-
tinctly described, and priests from Greenland from the
bishopric of Gardar conducted the first voyage of discovery
(1266). This north-westernmost summer station is called
tSe Kroksf jardar-Heide. Mention is made of the drift-
wood (doubtless from Siberia) which was collected there,
and of the abundance of whales, seals, wafruses, and sea-
bears. (3^8j

Our accounts of the communications of the extreme
north of Europe, and of Iceland and Greenland, with the
American Continent properly so called, only extend to the
niiddle of the 14th century. In 1847, a ship was sent from
Greenland to Markland (Nova Scotia), to bring building
tiinber and other necessary articles. In returning from
Markland the ship was driven by tempests and forced to
take refuge in Straumfiord, in the West of Iceland. This

is the latest notice having reference to America, preserved
to' us in ancient Scandinavian writings, (369) '

» 1 have hitherto kept strictly on historic ground. By the

flMf} EPooggi.iii..wgcg«fiPQMuQg-THa.r(Hirg«MBfcArioy of

aBii.o£ihfi SfiyalSocusty wtoblifthfld ai. Copffnhiigffn for tl»>
flted)^' o£. iMBtfa«nL aaliqutifii^ tli& Sc^^oa^ axid< ooipuli
890SGea oC inforiBalJou rftspfctin^ tba. vojujp^ «1 the:Noirthr
moa to HrilnlMtflifflarfottodkiid)^ to MarMgnd» tiha moBfe
o£. Urn SL. Lavnnoe and Konra. Sootk^ aod.ta. Yiolwi
(IftisMckiuetti), , have be^. aemnHj famM^mA. aaiisSBOh
tooljf c<imwffltad aa. (3^) The: diusatioii ^ <i£ the . vqiipw
iha eottfiie, aad the. tiiuiia': af biuidm aoA aiii|8Q(|t,«n.Alli

Thamift: kiSi oertniitf Ttflfoitiiig that tncas wUcLhaie;
beeaaaj^poaad to.ba«fouj|d..<tf.a<cy0oo¥arj of AwawVa. fiwt.
IxalaDd pranoiubloithdtyear 1000.. The Skiiluigei; jialatadL
to^ the KiardiiiMSL soMIqcL m Yin]aii4. liiat ftsthai. to; tboi
sauiih,. bBfoaLiCbaaap^e B^^ Aesa ware '' whitot bqa^
ivmJng Joag ivliita gaiment8«> who. casaed bef<tfse tiiem ffks.
witiLpiaGas olGl0ih.lE«teiiad..tot thenv aod. who eaUed with.
a bod wcis^I' Thiakacoouot ^ma^ioiacpixM hg^ ihe CShdatiaa
Noithnatt ttt^iadiaate pQoes8ioiiaywithbaiBiiaraaad.8iiiguig^
In the oldest Sagas, in the historical narratives ofTfaorfiaii
Kacbab^^^.a^d. the.. laelaadic Landnnma^booki^ these aon-
thfisatsoasta bfii»«aeirYirgiiaa.andi Hondas are.daaignated hf
the. name. of. White Manx's LaxxL Thi^^ are. also callfid
Gxeai Iieland,(ilxknd ]H;^mi^ aoditLOs Asaartedthattliej
were peopled bom Isdand*. i^eording;. to, tQ|tuDaosiG&
which go baek^as &r as 1064> befoie. Leii diacoveced Yia-
land, pxobabljr,aboa£. the ym. 968, Ad Jftaiaaoi^ of tha
pamufol. Icelamdjc funfly of Ulf . the. sqnnibteyed^ on a
▼oyage &om. Icdand ta the. aonthsRaDcl^ waa* ddiaa bj
storms to the coaab> of White. MeaV Land^ and. w»s..tb^
l^tizad«Chxialian;i,.and not being perxnitted toi {jp^mbrTi

-^was reoqi^scd there by. mm Smn: ishdf • Qskatf^JsiuiiiA mi

Same noithem aiitic[tnii48 ure of 'opinion tiuA as in. the
ddtst IcdbcEfdie dJbeixoieiii» tijof fini isiJKbitoiite^ of tbeislMd
'«»fOB]!knl^^West meik ntko amrei bj sea/' (t&dMitU
t&eBisdves mlt PapyM eo: tbe sBofek-ant coast and' en iibe
ad^aeeiit'SfflaB island' of P&{»r)^ Icehnd nittt' bame llMi
'ftNt peopled not dmsctly {rem Enrept^ bat bom Yirgnia
and' Gflxvimft^ that is-to say fimmlrlaaid it unkk or WUfe
MoaVhod^ wldoh bad received its iidEaUtaois troimlnimai
nt^ a sttD eai:lieir period. Th^iinpaortaiit tneatise entitled '^de
Mennvft Qrb]e>7toe»^' by tiie Ir&h maak BwaSk, wbick:m
jpfiMra isk 9t6j heiag 98 yean before laeiaodwaAdisoQnraidi
by Northman Ifaddod^ (foeeiiot|h0iifivee> oodbmtiliB opttnoa.

dtoiBtttai anehoiites in, the tiorlb of Burapcky and Buridkbt
-tteiJis-iti tto interior o£ ^a^ have expk)i«d and ofBoadbtD
eilibiatkrD i^one whidi urore soppeved te be JweeeaMiUe^
Hie desijeeof eslenAiag rel^poii» dagmae has Ied?seawtiaoes.
to'imdibe euteiptiscs^ and soiaelinies baa ptepated' tiate ^lay
ii^peaeeliil ideas and to ooimnereial rebtaons> In the fiart
kaif of the BKidcBe a^ geogvaphy w«b adina»ead*byeaitai&-
piMe» dSetated by the retigieti& sseal, etoong^ eentissted
Willi Jbe inciffiFere&ee of flte pelytbeist) Greeks and Bonume^
ef^ dteistiins^ Buddhkts^ ai^^ Matfeometass. Le^oaaie^ in
'M» eommeartaiy on IXccol^ haB> iritii mmk isgenoi^ and
eoateness made it appear probable thai after tiie Irish
iBiflBioiifiiiea If ere expcffied fipom the Kroe Islands by the
llbithmen^ lltef began dbosl the year 79^ mit lodaaid.
yfhm the Kofthmes first kmded in lodand they feand
tHere Irish boc^^ Mass bells> and other objeets wUcii had
tieB left beMnd'bf eaidier vUtois ealkd Bsqw : tfaeeepapaa

8S8 XP0CH8 IK THl HI8S0&T OF XHS 0QM1XM9Z./LTI0N Of

(ftihers) were the elerici of Dicuil* (^7^) If then, as ;«e
may suppose from the testimony here refi^red to^ these
objects belonged to Irish monks (papar) who had come from
the Faroe Islands^ why should they have been termed in the
native Sagas, '^ West men'' (Vestmen), ^' who had come ovar
the sea from the westward*' (kommir til vestan um haf) ?
^All that relates to the supposed voyage of the Gbelic chieftaia
•Madoc the son of Owen Qwyneth, is as yet veiled in pro-
found obscurity : the supposed race of Gelto*American3;
.which credulous travellers thought they had discovered in
.'several parts of the United States, is gradually disappeariiig
•since the introduction of strict ethnological comparison,
^founded not on accidental resemblances of word^, but oi
•organic structure and grammatical forms* (3^^)

That this £rst discovery of America in or before the
^eleventh century was not productive of a great. and pec-
*inanent enlargement of the phyisical contemplation ol th^
Universe, as was the te-diseovery of the same continent laj
Columbus at the dose of the fifteenth century, is aii almost
^necessary consequence of the uncultivated condition of the
•race by whom tha fiist discovery wae made, and of the native
4)f the regions to which it r^naiued limited. The Sccin£-

' .Flavians were not prepared by mj scientifie knowledge tip
^explore the lands in which thjey settled JMher than appeased
jiecessary for the supply of their moat imjnediate wants.

' ..GxeeulaQd and Icdand, wbich must be regaird^d as the ie^
.mother countries of those new colonies, are x^ions in whieh
jnan has to cope with all the difBioulties anct hardships of Mi
(inhospitable climate. The wonderfully organised lodan^
J?ree State did, indeed, preserve its independence for tiuee
eenturifis. and a hal4 until the destiruation of civil &«ediBi^

rrUB TTNIVERSTB. — OCEANIC DISOOVBEIllig. "239

and the subjection of the country to the Norwegian king,
Haco YI. The flower of the Icelandic literature, the
historical writings, the coHeetion of Sagas and of the songs
of the Edda, belong to the twelfth and thirteenth centurie^.
If is a remarkable phenomenon in the history of the intd^
lectual cultivation of nations, that when the national treasures
of the oldest documents belonging to the North of Europe
were placed in Jeopardy by the unquiet state of their own
country, they should have been conveyed to Iceland and there
carefully preserved, and thus rescued for posterity. This
rescue, the remote consequence of IngolPs first settlement
in Iceland in 875, became, amidst the undefined and
-misty fonris of the Scandinavian world of myths and of
figurative cosmogonies, an event of much importance in
respect to the fruits of the poetical and imaginative faculties
of men: it was only natural knowledge which gained no
enlargement. Travellers from Iceland visited the learned
institutions of Germany and Italy ; but the discoveries made
from Greenland towards the south, and the inconsiderable
intercourse maintained with Vinland, the vegetiation of
which did no* present any striking peculiarity of chft*
meter, had so little power to divert settlers and mariners
bom their whoQy European interest, that no tidings of these
newly sett^led countrieB spread amcmg the cultivated nations
of Southern Europe. Even in Iceland itself no notice
feppecting them appears to have reached the ears of the
great Genoese navigator. Iceland and Greenland had then
been already separated from each other for more than two
centuries, as in 12r61 Greenland had lost its republican
constitution^ and as a possession of the crown of Norway
Jbad been formally interdicted from all intereourse m^

fM EFOOM i» fsen HiniMur.QP tu ooNomai^kTioK oi
fii«tignetB^ KAd €vea wjdi lod^ IiiAiiawrvfiiynseiiiQik

hR mentiotti kmBg wted loelaad inllie mcniliLAf JlebBaan
1477^ «ad idds^ibit ''tbejaa me aot tben eovoped witii
iee^ (^^) end tlMytti^ oouati^ mis mkad by attoy ^tndeis
.£k«i BrisbeL^' If Jbe luid hami,iha»oi the^lotmor fioloai-
<Mliion on an nfpfotilb/G coMt of .an eBteiflm icouiactedteni-
4Qgc7---^fHdliiibMKl it ouUa, df MaridAad^andiof ^' the ipodi
Yi]]laucr--H«Biid had c<wtteet«d ftia IsnovleigeiEif a .nagh
bovring omUasa^ nilih the ptfjaeto nifck which jgye hdd
idteadj been occa{»ed fiixioe 1470 4iid 143^^ — ^hk wiiit
9Suile (Icdaned) would no Aovht hafe been mere apohm 4t
isk flie celebdied htrsBit zesyeoliaf^lha moat Jot the Ant
ifisoovQvy, "vrhiGh if«8 not tmichided nggatil <1&17 ; Iw ^tfe
^Qspiobits l^ealteren mentions a ohant ^nappa iBsanda}
vliit^ Martm Alonso Finaon had seen )at lUnae^ on ^idufik
the New Gorftanent itas Biad to ham baen laid .^mrnts U
CbknDbas had deogned io seek In* a iMidi4f •whachihs Jdl
<<bi«MiHd lofbnnatiQii in leelaad^ hn wodd oertaidiy oft
liave steeised a aaath^^iFeflteEly ecroise fisMOi ths Qammmm
his ifiiat "vtrfBge f>f diaoovtfy. Bflriiwnm Bergen sbhI Gboaik
iandy howeiwr, ooimnercU relations utiSSt saJbeialed m .hMk,
aeven yeams after CohimbBsb loyags to ledbaid.

Yery diiesent^fMimiiw (diret iAtawtwy ■<< tibesewiMn-
tioi^t in the eleveaBth tsentary, in its oesaits on Hue . hittoy
«f the world, and m its inflaence cm 1^ ctisMrgoBUBtt
of the physical jaaatempljitjan of .the UoivenN^ «as Ae
Te-disooveiy of .iAmeaaa^-^-^^he dnoovoy 'cf iti trapad
fands, — fay Oolnnibiuu Aithcmgh in ^oondnctiiDg hss^geeit
«Edieq>ti86he'had by jioi«ieaBa>Hi<iitGRir the disoowya&a
new part at the tiaodd; : aldMng^ it ia efca >eeitaan thit

THE tmrvESSB. — ocBAinx) niBOoynniBi. WOi

hath Coltunbus and* Amerigo Yvapacd died in ^ firmr'tp^-
soasion ^) that iiie lands nv^hidi they l»d seen mm
merely poTtioBs of Eastern Asia, yet insToyage 'bas eSl'^iiB
diaracter of the exectction of a pka Jbimdcid cm fmsMk
CombinHtionB. 'The e:!tpedition steered cesfidenily msmndi
to the -west tfarongh the igate which the'Tjfnaiis and ikAstma
of Samos had opened^ through the ''immea9Q:ratiieMa''ef
darkness^' (mare tmebtosnm) of the Arabian 'geo^j^iers;
they pressed {oTwaards tmrards an object of whidi lSicy
iJioa^t 'ftey knew Ae distanoe: the siamef s •wennat
aecidentally driven by tempests/as were Naddod and Ghrdar
to XeeSand, and 3tnmlnom the son of IMEoraka to Ghraoi*
hxid/uiir were the diseovereia oondncted onward 'byistop.
"Yening stations. The great Nuxemberg fxmnognifim,
'Martin Eefaaim, who accompanied the PdrtogoeBe iDiego
0am on his important escpeditions to the west 'oeast 'of
'iA&ioa; Tiyed four years (1466'-1490) at the Azoves; but it
was^btftbm these islands^ situated at -^ths of the dsKtoaee
tif the Iberian-coast from that of FdBsjdvaniay that Amaniea
'was discovered. The determined purpose of the afelt is
findy celebrated in the stan2as ofT&sso. He isizi^ ^cf ' that
wfaioh Hercules dared not attenarpt : —

Nan ob6 di tenfaor Talto Ooeaao
'Segn6 le nu^ e'n troppo breivi ^osbi

I/ardir-zzstrinsedeU' xii^gegno nmaao •

Sempo (fenJL difr-fiui d*£R»le iisegni
BiTdla Tile ai navfgttoti iAfdastri ......

Un uom della Lignria avrii ariimento
AIT'lnoogiiitio oozbo ^spoini in pnona' •««•••

TA880/xr. It. 1^5,'30 and 31.

And yet all that the great Portagoese hilstoiical wxiter
' John Barros; (^7^) wliose fiiflt decade appeared in 15SS$| hui

S4^ BP0GH9 m TUB HISTOXT OV THB OCOrnBlfPLATION OT

to say of this '^uom della Liguria/' isy that he was a vam
and fantastic talker: (homem fallador e glorioso em
mostiar suas habilidades e mais faatastico, e de imaginacoes
com sua Bha Cypango.) It is thus that^ throughout all
ages and all degrees of civilization yet attained^ national
animosity has endeavoured to obscure the brightness of glo-
rious names.

In the history of the contemplation of the Universe^ the
discovery of tropical America by Christopher ColumbuSi
Alonso de Hojeda., and Alvarez Cabral^ must not be r^arded
as an isolated event. Its influence on the extension of phy«
sical knowledge^ and on the enrichment of the world of
ideas^ cannot be justly apprehended, without casting a brief
glance on the preceding centuries^ which separate the age of
the great nautical enterprises from the period when tim
scientific cultivation of the Arabians flourished. That whieh
gave to the era of Columbus its distinctive character, as a
series of uninterrupted and successful exertions &r the
attainment of new geographical discoveries or of an enlarged
knowledge of the earth^s surface, was prepared beforehand,
slowly, and in various ways. It was so prepared by a small
number of courageous men, who roused themselves at orm
to general freedom of independent thought, and to the in-
vestigation of particular natural phsenomena; — ^by the in-
fluence exerted on the most profound springs of inteUeo-
tual life by the renewed acquaintance formed in Italy
with the works of Greek and Eoman literature; — by the
discovery of an art which lends to thought at .once wings
for rapid transmission and indefinitely multiplied means of
preservation; — and by the more extensive knowledge of
Eastern Asia, which travelling merchants, and the monb

wbo had been sent as ambassadors to the Mogcd princei^,
circulated amongst those nations of south-western Europo
vhd "were most' disposed to distant commerce and inter«
course^ and most eagi^y desirous of discovering a shorten
conte to the Spiee Islands. The fulfilment of the wishes
which sH these causes contributed to excite was in the most
important degree facilitated towards the close of the 15th
century, by advances in the art of navigation, the gradual
improvement ci nautical instruments, magnetical as well as
astronomical ; and finally, by the introductiosi of new me*
thods of determining the ship's pliace, and by the more
general use of the ephemeride^ of the sun and moon pre-
pared by Begiomontanus.

Without entering into details in the history of the
menees which do not belong to the present work, we must
dte among those who had prepared the way for the epoch of
Oolumbus and Gama, three great names, Albertus Magnus^
Bpger Bacon, and Vincent of Beauvais. 1 have given these
three in the order of time, — ^but the name of most importance,
and which bdongs to the most comprehensive genius, is
unquestionably that of Eoger Bacon, a Franciscan monk of
Dehester, who studied in Oxford afad in Paris. All three
were in advance of their s^e, and acted powerfully upon it,
Intibe long aadfor the most part unfruitful contests of
diakctie specuktions, and of the logical dogmatism of a
philosophy which has been designated by the vague and
eqnivoeol term of scholastic, we cannot overlook the advan-
tage-derived from what might be called the after -action of
the influence of the Arabians. The peculiarity of their
national character described in the preceding section, and
timr attachment to the cotitemplation and study of nature.

SM4 EPQOt i3r«»anw«f«» 'amxxmuMmmhnov oi

,iiad fpNxraMdjf or ^Oie neiiif jinnifcif d^iwritjap^rf ^AuMk

jkiho ipTQiHeatioA iot vihe ' (OperinieMil iwiHimrH/ r mi nli^^
•tiondocke ^ tke :0mdiiBl ifiiiJilMmifuJi !aE^i«»HbaBm)0]e>BidiiBh
ihfigr iBi^lit heratfiker be.-«oUfflj hutSL Vw&^wmi:atdtt
tveiHth and dw MtameatHnaaat r^f 'ittior>diiiaaBili liMitiimHi,
iflffiiu^krstood jdactnmes of Ae iBhtaBic 'jpMlniiB|ii; ;jp»-
vvikd inihe sebook. .The F«llwnafiaaCBinFdt(a^^^Hi

HOiiteiiipliltioBflw XoB^ of • the 'syBihdftiiig:vph|aHidc
fifihe .Xmuaas -vere .eceqHMid'^^wildb aothiBnu:; n^billai
ponfned.i&Ad' eeroneatts idne faifwating'T^ flmWj^gf
which fhe Alexandrian mathematiGal «dHMl^ JadEllaB^Jnm
di»im.th&,gwxandk«satt8^ mem imifeAhfMathstimmiMa^
f%« .ThuB the ; pifidoDBaKnoe of 4he PlatoniBfj^kBafig^
€r^ 4o 4f6fJb in{H<e.4iD]sree%> of ihe gww gnodiiMtii—K«i£H>>
tofikm; <wa&»prapBgaled omder i^an^d^g fomnslfHini ^iiifliiiitf"
to AlGuln^.j4)kirlfcottt&^ jmdBQii^^

WkeD^ .on 4lie -other hand^-'tbe ^bJlMflltttt fhanwniiy
gnnedihe aaca;idfm€y>rildnflsieM^theirnni^
at once towasdfr thenroeeaKhfls ol^^^pittdBiiiiet -fUSmK^^BapmA
die phflosophleal'elabodybion'sefMtort^
efqperiment. Of'these>tfVr<>^dire€iion9ikfaer£Mi
to be Jaiitlitth ecmaeGled'VJthitheiob)^
yet^ft mustiDot'be Mtmeilheiit sjfiosioii^ heawrt^acfeiii mJiTiTn
of 4ihe period i€i£ ^AedsaaohelastkB^it imdMtmmal^mlm
BoUe aBdh%My ^(;adaBaiBda4K> the'fisamie&txftee
peQdaitth0B^gbt|iBiltbBtmoBt dUeliaiti
leSge. An ODhiiged'phjraical QMiiin^^
only reqcEbes ftriift»di»nfbteoeofiobBepviti(

ws'SKPfAhac flEOLcttiBare obvioM veMcms^uKsdcr Att^ia ibe
oltettarwafaBed ooiiitait boiwwn hEKMrledj^ and £BJIih^ ihef
m^hi lasiihb detenrad byttlifeatouiig Som^, i^liidi «vemb
nariem • limea fa»7e been wgemdy reifaiedeid as . forUddkig
«9eeaBr;tQxertadn.d«paEtineQft8 ofMQiqpetkxieBiAl scienoe.

5(Khe]i kndbsng^m inteUecliial A&veiopBaetA, wemt^sit
a^azste l^fii«nain(liiig inBueiiees t)f"the ooadoiiaBew «£ mafli^
jurtpjxiifsgeiaf t&teUcicku^ fesedom^. aod-i^beloiig unsaiiUKfi^
dgdaeaf viieTfE^ds ^thaemhigs, 6BibiaQiiigtbe«i0i^diffl«ffit
M^km^iof fhstiMUifaie&^f .th&«iictih. A sesies^of snoh iode-
peodsaat > Akbeisno^lii b& naoMd^ beginsibg in the -^niddb
ages ipitib Dtms Scotos^ Williaai «f Occud^ .ISodiolaa^if Goa«^
wbA iiMKinaed 'Avcwtgh Siiiine^ CmnpftBella sad Qmiaaao

Wtte .iBgpfBmBB&j impmss^ '^gsiS betinem thmkiag lud
Uiiig^fithcmgbt Attd^aotiiiJ ^xistencQ.; — ^the nilatiiia betw^ea
Uie mM yfimk'WtoogBkmxaA tiiiBvobjectxecQgiufied'' divided
the I^alectifiittM iato the two odebrafted schooh of tbe
.BedtflB sod the ItoBKiiiallstsK The ^atnoLOBt Ibrgotten .o«q^
infai taf'titose sebocds <tf th^ixadd]e.age3>«re..b»e xeieaaeii^
9amsmm ihej 'tes^tkd « •aajBtesial ioflaeBoe Km ' the Msi
MUUtUsnent 4if the hasb cX vthe '.esfmnoBAsl sciaaAn.
is&ftsrwaaagrfiucftaaticmfi iaa tiie siwiQefl9.0f theiwapictiQgfy^ilie
.wtajrifiM^.i^^ 1:^ and IStii^oenbiiaes viiji

ii»J!f<m]im&ii)^ who aUoiw 4» ^xtecoal mbBOBC cu^a wai^
i^aeim.^aigkmmmXkR hjmkm rnnd, J&aia ibeur^^gzeater
wmaiui tanecg^ iiJiiiiiuitiiaii^ii Agy .fijstv uflgoi: iibe JiaaMw^
of ^peariei^e, and the propriety of angsaeBitixig ihe iuMB
MAmaMdigSit.'.m wm^ikm ibeafi|^ the .sKpdisan ££ the

246 EFOCHS IN THE HISTOKT OP THIS COOTEMPLATION OF

least indirectly inflaential on the cultivation of experimie^
natural knowledge ; but even where the views of the Bealists
were still exclusively prevalent, acquaintance with Arabian
literature had fostered a love for natural knowledge, and
aided it to assert its place successfully, amidst the exclu^vdy
absorbing tendency of theological studies. Thus, we see
that in the different periods of the middle ages, to which too
great a uniiy of character is perhaps usuaUy ascribed, the
way for the great work of discoveries over the surface of the
earth, and for their successful employment in the enlarge-
ment of the circle of cosmical ideas, was gradually prepared
through wholly different trains of thought, the on6 poidy
ideal and the other empirical.

Natural knowledge was intimately connected among Afi
learned Arabians with the study of medidnes and with
philosophy; and in the Christian middle ages with philo-
sophy and with dogmatic theological studies. The latter
jfrom their tendency to claim exclusive dominion repressed
empirical investigation in physics, organic morphology, and
astronomy, which indeed was for the most part aUied to
astrology. The study of the works of the aU-embracing
mind of Aristotle, which had been brought in by Arabs aftd
Jewish Eabbis, {^^) had tended to produce a philosophieal
fusion of different branches of study; and thus Ibn-^Sina
(Avicenna) and Ibn-Eoschd (Averroes), Albertus Magnus
and Roger Bacon, passed as the representatives of all human
knowledge possessed by their age. We may hence estimate
the fame which in the middle ages isurrounded the names of
these eminent men.

Albertus Magnus, of the family of the Counts of Bollstadt,
must be cited as himself ^ obi^erver in the doinain fi

THB UNIVBESB.-— OGMNIC DISCX)VEEIES. 247

imalytical chenuistry. His hopes were indeed directed to
the transmutatioii of metals; but in seeking the fulfilment
of these hopes^ he not only materially improved the practical
manipulation and treatment of ores^ but also gained additional
insight into the general mode of operation of the chemical
forces of nature* His works contain some exceedingly acute
detached remarks on the organic structure and physiology
of plants. He was acquainted with the sleep of plants^
with the periodical opening and closing of blossoms, with
the diminution of sap during evaporation from the cuticle
of the leaves, and with the influence of the distribution
of the bundles of vessels on the indentations of the leaves.
He wrote a commentary upon the whole of Aristotle's works
on physics and natural history, following, however, in. the
history of animals, only the Latin translation of Michael
Scot from the Arabic (3®^) A work of Albertus Magnus
bearing the title of Liber Cosmographicus de Natura
Locorum is a species of physical geography. I have
found in it considerations on the dependence of tempera-
ture concurrently on latitude and elevation, and on the effect
of different angles of incidence of the sun's rays in heating
the ground, which have excited my surprise. He owes
perhaps his having been celebrated by Dante, less to himself
than to his beloved scholar Thomas Aquinas, who he took
witli him from Cologne to Paris in 1245, and brought back
to Qearmany in 1248.

Qnesti, c^ m' ^ a destra piii yUmf>,
Frate e maestro fiimmi ; ed esso Alberto
E' di Cologna, ed io Thomas d' Aquino.

Il Paeadiso, X. 07—99.

In all that relates immediately to the extension of the

fig xpoQHft nh TBM jusa&MX ov. TMM'Oammmb^TioN of

MtwiL raencesj to tlieur ttathematical fomdation^ mLio
As iBtontknel productiaa. of pkcaomeiuk a the mj. «(
cgpfMiaaegt; Albeit von BoUstadt or Albertis M»gnB%, tihis
teiemfoxasy of Boger Bacon^ ludda thft foiwvost flaqs* ia
the middle agsB. Tham. two lasa occngjr Ymiamsesa, Htm
ainost tha eotiEe thictemith. oaituxy; hut ta Sioaier BafiOi
bekmgBrite ppnise, that the iaAiieiMa exartad b}[ bimiQBi ths
foaa and tte^toxeot of ibe stodj of Batiua vai mom. baoa*
dBisi, and. JBoie penaanant m its op^rationj tiaaA thaaaical
diseovenefr iduah hara beaik. witii mosa oc law • aomatoaa
aacmbad 'ta hiinu Awal&enad faiiuaelf to indesendeot thoafjUk
lia.£OiideBnad strongly the blizul futk iu tha aotliomties d
&». sahoels ; yat &r horn baing iudifiaseiit to tba^ imeatagit
Haa of Gsedan axutiqusiQr^ ha.at the sama tima. ^fff&asid
and. vakiedatborough study of tiiat lorig^ag^ {^^^} thaaf^
l^iaatiaii of uaa^Jhi^matifia^ and tha " Sctaotia e&pcriyrifintaliqt?
to. which last ha devoted a pacticalar section of the G^
Ms^s« (38S) Esoted^ed and faaroared by one poff
(Pfisoei^ ly.); aad. accused of laagic a&d impisaned. b|^
ti|(o othera.(Nichdb8 TJL and lY.)^ ha ^cgecL^ced tiia
idteniatioa& of f€dittDa.'tot which in all ages, great mnii
hasre feeque^y baei^. subject. He was. aaquaiuted wiA
Ptoleosy's Optics^ (^ aadwitiithe Alxaagi^« Ai^ lite
tiifr Axabia&s^ he always, callsi HippaDchua Abraxis, wa mj
ifi&r that, he too only ipada Esa of a I^atia. tiaissl^kidi
derived from the Aiikbic* Next to his dieBucal expadanQDll
on combustible ei^osive mixtures^ , his theoretico-optioal
works on perspective, and. on the pQsitioA.aif the focus ift
concave mirrors, aee the most iiiq>artaiit; His Opus Ma^
which is full of thought^ contains proposals and plans tf
passible. execi«tion, but no dear traces of siicccas ift^^cq^lssal

mati0ti knowleAg&t His^ ,«hara«kmabier b nAemflL cerfcajni
lyelieea^ ef liiimginatkm^. ^wJaach. that Jm^pmrnon. of ao muxf?
giart loid imeqpjfiified natiuaL ph^masiia^,. thai laagrrajid.
pMsfol 86«»k &r the soliilaMiiv^ BijniteikHia' pB»bl6iii%,
hado raised ta atdognee- olSiiiuidbidt kiteiflity^ anaAS^. tlMsai
o£ the- mediBBvd miHifcs wbosa Eiaida. ^Mire^ difeoted. t»i
tharstadf of. pjulosopliy* Th^d^SBouIiiiQSb iii^el^..bafe]»<'tli8\
loraatioQ of* priniaGag the espeoae o£ oopjdats oppaaod t«;
thgttMnpmhlngo of Biaajr aepamte HiaiiHaer^tis^ prodiiaedii^
HmJsiMk'Bgi^^ ^rilteQ' after iihetiiiiikeeatii: aoitacj.the oiael^
of ideaa bcgaa to eallifg^ a«great.pittdy3fifilioiL fesrEiiiejiidoM*
pndic worbir Theae worka ase deiacring: q£ piatifidbr
irttaptioii iiij ithi^plaoej. beoanee they led to Jbhft gaosnii^tismL
o£.^MKray. Thftia appe^wd oil 8ttfieea&k)fi>. one woib beiaoig: m.
gmtt. Hiaasiu»t Ibaadfld oa its predeoesaoDs^ tha twenlgt^
hooka do wsmh oatora of Thoaaaa^ Gaoiiipiat^iaui/ .Prafaasttt/
«t>Lowi^iB}12^8A;. tha;iDisro£of'ii«tuce.(Sp^i]IjimData0al€^
irfaidi YiBiMSUb. of Beasyaia- (BeUaivaoeDais). iraoki four Ski
Loiwh and hi»<30iiaort .MftrgiNDrir/o£ ProroiuiCiiiii 18S&; tine,
''book of natoref" of Conrad of Mas^^b^gp. a. priasfc aib
Bflgembusg. in l{849,j and th»^ ^^piatuDa of tha* world''
(Jliiafo Muiidi) of. Cardinal 'Reims de Miaioo^, BU^ o£
Gfitti]ua7>.iA.141(K Theae Encyidopffidios wei^ thaipiaauar^
aon-of; tiborginat . Mdrgiark* .philOac^hiea of, IS^aihest Beiaaii^
thfi.fisaif sUtioBt^ii iRhieh appoassed m ];4&6»^ and: whiok tm
hatf a^ aantefjF pfoiaoted m a< rftmykahlft maaner. tba
oatensoa rof^ktioadedge. We m^t' hese dwefl> a liilla vunm
pactieulik»lf oq tha^ L&ago Misadi of GaadfiMili AJ&ieiUN
(^air6>dfAi%)^. rhaflre Aemi dafewhera that; this utodt
:ino3»».iaAae]itial on the diii90ovei7'of. Agamat^ tiban

t60 EPOCHS IK THE HISTOBT OF THE COHTBUPIATIOK OV

the correspondence with the learned Morentme Tbscanelli
(385^, All that Columbus knew of Greek and Eoman
writers^ all the passages of Aristotle^ Strabo^ and Seneca,, on
the nearness of Eastern Asia to the pillars of Hercules,
which^ as his son Door Fernando tells us^ were what princi*
pally incited his father to the discovery of Indian landSi
(autoridad de los escritores para mover al Almirante ^
descubrir las Indias) were derived by the Admiral from the
writings of AlHacus. Columbus carried these writings
with him on his voyages ; for^ in a letter written to the
Spanish monarchs in October 1498 from Hayti^ he translates
word for word a passage from the Cardinal's treatise, " de
quantitate terras habitabilis/' by which he had been pro-
foundly impressed. He probably did not know that AUiacos
had on his part transcribed word for word from another earUer
book^ Boger Bacon's Opus Majus. {^^) Singular period,
when a mixture of testimonies from Aristotle and Averroes
(Avenryz), Esdras and Seneca^ on the small extent of the
ocean compared with the magnitude of continental land;
afforded to monarchs guarantees for the safety and expedi-
ency of costly enterprises !

I have noticed the appearance^ at the close of the
thirteenth century, of a decided predilection for the study
of the powers or forces of nature, and of a progressively
increasing philosophical tendency in the form assumed by that
fitudy, in its establishment on a scientific experimental
basis. It still remains to give a brief description of the
influence which, from the end of the fourteenth century, the
awakening attention to classical literature exercised on the
deepest springs of the intellectual life of nations, and thus
upon the general cont^nplation of the Universe. The

THE T7NIVBESB.-- OCBANIC DIS00VBKIJ9S. 851

individual intellectual character of a few highly gifted men
had contributed to the augmentation of the riches of the
world of ideas. The susceptibility to a more free intel-
lectual development existed at the period when Grecian
literature, favoured by many apparently accidental relations^
oppressed and driven from its ancient seats, sought a more
secure resting-place in western lands. The Arabians in
their classical studies had remained strangers to aU that
belongs to the inspiration of language. Those studies were
limited to a very small number of ancient writers ; and in
accordance with the strong national predilection for the
pursuit of natural knowledge, were principally directed to
Aristotle's books of Physics, Ttolemy's Almagest, the bo-
tany and chemistry of Dioscorides, and the cosmological
phantasies of Plato. The dialectics of Aristotle were
associated by the Arabians with physical, as they were by
the earlier portion of the Christian middle ages with
theological, studies. In both cases, men borrowed, from the
ancients what they judged available for particular applica-
tions; but they were far indeed from apprehending the
genius of Greece as a whole, from penetrating the organic
structure of its language, from delighting in its poetic
creations, and from searching out its admirable treasures
in the fields of oratory and historical writing.

Almost two centuries before Petrarch and Boccaccio,
John of Salisbury and the platonising Abelard had exercised
a beneficial influence in reference to acquaintance with some
of the works of classical antiquity. Both felt the beauty
and the charm of writings' in which nature and ^lind,
freedom^ and subjection to measure, order^ and harmony are

VOL. IT. S

252 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOBT OF THE CONTEICPLATION OV

ever foand conjoined; but the influence of the sesthetic
feeling thus awakened in them vamshed without leavii^
farther traces ; and the praise of having prepared in Italy
a permanent resting place for the exiled Qrecian Muses^
of having laboured most powerfully for the restoration d
classical literature, belongs to two poets intimately linked
with each other in the bonds of friendship — ^Petrarch and
Boccaccio. They had both received lessons from a Galabrian
monk named Barlaam, who had long lived in Greece enjoying
the favour of the Emperor Andronicus. (*®^) They first com-
menced the careful collection of Eoman and Grecian manu-
scripts; and even an historical eye for the comparison of
languages had been awakened in Petrarch, (^^®) whose
philological acuteness seemed to tend towards a inore
general contemplation of the Universe. Emanuel Ohiyso-
loras, who was sent as ambassador from Greece to Italy and
to England m 1891, Cardinal Bessarion of Trebizond,
Gemistus Pletho, and the Athenian, Demetrius Chalcondylas,
to whom is owing the first printed edition of Homer, ('®)
were all important agents in promoting acquaintance wifli
Grecian literature. All these came from Greece before the
eventful taking of Constantinople on the 29th of May, 1488
it was only Constantino Lascans, whose ancestors had once sat
on the throne of the eastern empire, who came later to Itafy,
and brought with him a precious collection of Greek manu-
scripts, which is now buried in the seldona-used library of the
Escurial. (390) The first Greek book was printed only fourteai
years before the discovery of America, although the art of print-
ing was discovered (probably simultaneously, and quite inde-
pendently (391) by Guttenberg in Strasburg and Mayence,

THE rNIVBESB. — OCEAOTC DISCOVEEIBS. £58

and by Lorenz Jansson Koster in Haarlem), between 1436
and 1439, or in the fortanate epoch of the first immigratioa
of learned Greeks into Italy.

Two centuries before the fountains of Grecian literature
were open to the nations of the west, and a quarter of a
century before the birth of Dante, who formed one of the
great epochs in the history of the intellectual cultivation of
southern Europe, events were taking place in the interior of
Asia, as well as in the East of Africa, which, by extending
commercial intercourse, accelerated the arrival of the period
of the circumnavigation of Africa and of the expedition of
Columbus. The armies of the Moguls in the course of twenty-
six years spread the terror of their name from Pekin and the
Cliinese wall as far as Cracow and Leignitz, and produced a
feeling of alarm throughout Christendom. A number of able
monks were sent both in a religious and diplomatic capacity;
— John de Piano Carpini and Nicolas Ascelin to Batu Khan,
and Buisbroeck (Bubruquis) to Mangu Khan to Karakorum.
The last named of these missionaries has left us some acute
and important remarks on the geographical extension of
different families of nations and of languages in the middle
of the thirteenth century. He was the first to recognize
that the Huns, the Baslikirs (inhabitants of Paskatir, Basch-
gird of Ibn-Pozlan), and the Hungarians, were of Pinnidi
or ITraUan race; and he found Gothic tribes, stiU preserving
their language, in the strong holds of the Crimea. (*^?)
The accounts given by Bubruquis of the immeasurable
riches of Eastern Asia excited the cupidity of two
powerful maritime nations of Italy, the Venetians and the
Genoese. Bubruquis knew ''the silver walls and golden
towers of Quinsay,'^ though he does not name that great

£54 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION OP

commercial city, (the present Hangtchenfa), which twenty-
five years later acquired such celebrity through the accounts
of the greatest of laud travellers, Marco Polo ('^^). Truth
and naive error are curiously intermingled in the accounts
given by Rubruquis of his travels, and preserved to us by
Soger Bacon, "Near Cathay, which is bounded by the
Eastern Ocean,^' he describes a happy land "where men
and women arriving from other countries cease to grow
old" (394). Still more credulous than the monk of Brabant,
and for that reason much more extensively read, was the
English knight. Sir John Mimdeville. He describes India
and China, Ceylon and Sumatra. The variety and personal
interest of his narrative have, (like the itineraries of Balducci
Pegoletti, and the narrative of Buy Gonzalez de Ckvijo),
contributed not a little to increase the disposition towards
intercourse with distant countries.

It has been often and with singular decision asserted, that
the excellent work of the truth-loving Marco Polo, and par-
ticularly the knowledge which he gave of the Chinese ports
and of the Indian arcliipelago, had great influence on Co-
lumbus, and that he even had a copy of Marco Polo's travels
with him on his first voyage of discovery. (^95) I have
shown that both Columbus himself, and his son Pemando,
speak of ^neas Sylvius's (Pope Pius 11.) geography of
Asia, but never name Marco Polo or Mandeville. What
they knew of Quinsay, Zaitun, Mango and Zipangu, may
have been gained, without any immediate acquaintance with
chapters 68 and 77 of the second book of Marco Polo, from
the celebrated letter of Toscanelli, in 1474, on the facihty
of reaxjhing Eastern Asia from Spain, and from the .accounts
of Nicolo de Conti, who travelled for 25 years through

THB tTNIVEBSE. — OCEANIC DISCOVEEIES. 255

India and Southern China. The oldest printed edition of
Marco Polo^s travels is a German translation made in 1477,
and this certainly would not have been intelligible to Cb-
lumbus and ToscaneUi. The possibility of Columbus having
seen a manuscript written by the Venetian traveller between
the years 1471 and 1492, in which he was occupied with the
project of sailing ^'to the East by the West" (buscar el
kvante por el poniente, pasar a donde nacen las especerias,
navegando al occidente), cannot certainly be denied ; (396)
but if so, why, in the letter which he wrote to the monarchs
from Jamaica, June 7, 1508, — ^in which he describes the
coast of Veragua as a jpart of the Asiatic Ciguare, and hopes
to see horses with golden trappings, — does not he refer to
the Zipangu of Marco Polo rather than to that of Papa Pio ?
At the period when the extension of the great Mogul
empire from the PaciiSc to the Volga rendered the interior
of Asia accessible, the maritime nations of Europe acquired
a knowledge of Cathay and Zipangu (China and Japan),
through the diplomatic missions of the monks, and through
mercantile enterprises conducted by means of land jour-
niea. By an equally remarka;ble concatenation of cir-
cumstances and events, the mission of Pedro de Covilham
and Alonso de Payva, sent in 1487 by King John II.
to seek for '^ the African Prester John," prepared the way,
not indeed for Bartholomew Diaz, but for Vasco de Garaa.
Confiding in reports brought by Indian and Arabian pilots
to Calicut, Goa, and Aden, as well as to Sofala on the east
coast of Africa, Covilham sent word to King John, by two
Jews from Cairo, that if the Portuguese prosecuted their
voyages of discovery on the western coast of Africa towards
tlie south, they would arrive at the extremity of that conti-

256 EPOCHS IN THB HISTORY Of THE COKTBHFZATIOK 09

nent ; bom whence the navigation to the Moon Island (the
Magastar of Folo)^ to Zanzibar^ and to Sofala rich in gold,
would be found extremdj easy. Long before these tidings
reached Lisbon^ however, it had been known there tiiat
Bartholomew Diaz had not only discovered the Cape of Good
Hope (Cabo Tormentoso), but had already sailed round it^
thoagh only for a very short distance. {^^) Accounts of
the Indian and Arabian trading stations on the eastern coast
of Afidca, and of the configuration of the southern extrezmty
of the continent, may, indeed, have reached Venice very eariy
in the middle ages, through Egypt, Abyssinia, and Arabia.
The triangular form of Africa is distinctly kid down in the
planisphere of Sanuto {^^) as early as 1306; intheGenoess
Portulano della Mediceo-Laorenziana of 1351 discovered
by Count Baldelli ; and in the map of the world by "En
Mauro. It is fitting that the history of the oontemplatioa
of the Universe should indicate by a passing allusion the
epochs when the general form of the great continental
masses was first recognised.

Whilst the gradually advancing knowledge of geographical
relations led men to think of new and shorter maritime
routes, the means of improving practical navigation by the
application of mathematics and astronomy, by the inventioa
of new measuring instruments, and by the more skUfiil xm
of the magnetic forces, were also rapidly increasing. It is
highly probable that Europe owes the adaptation of the
directing powers of the magnet to the purposes of navigation
—or the use of the mariner's compass — ^to the Arabians, and
that they again were indebted for it to the Chinese. In a
CSbinese work, (the historic Szuki of Szumathsian, a writ^
belonging to the first haK of the second century before our

THE UNIVBRSB. — OCBANIO DISCOVEEIES, 257

era), mention is made of •'magnetic cars" given, more than
900 years before, by the emperor Tschingwang of the old
dynasty of the Tschea to the ambassadors from Tunkin and
CJochin China, that they might not miss .their way on their
homeward journey by land. In Hiutschin's dictionary
Schuewen, written in the third century under the dynasty
of the Han, a description is given of the manner in which
the property of pointing with one extremity to the south is
communicated to an iron bar : navigation being then most
usually directed to the south, the end of the magnet which
pointed southwards was the one always referred to. A
century later, under the flynasty of the Tsin, Chinese ships
used the south magnetic direction to guide their course in
the open sea> and these ships carried the knowledge of the
compass to India, and from thence to the east coast of Africa.
The Arabic terms zophron and aphron (for south and north)
(399) which Vincent of Beauvais in his mirror of nature
gives to the two ends ot the magnetic needle, shew (as do
the many Arabic names of stars which we still employ) the
diannel through which the nations of the West received
mmch of their knowledge. In Christian Europe the use of
the compass is first mentioned as a perfectly familiar subject
in the politico-satirical poem called '' La Bible,'' written by
Guyot of Provence in 1190, and in the description of
Palestine by Jacob of Vitry, Bishop of Ptolemais, between
1204 and 1215. Dante (Parad. xii. 29) alludes in a com*
parison to the '^ needle which points to the star.''

The discovery of the mariner's compass was long ascribed
to Plavio Gioja of Positano, a place not far from the beauti-
ful Amalfi, which its widely extended maritime Ws rendered
go celebrated; perhaps he may have made (1S02) soqm

iJ58 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION Of

improvement in its constraction. That the compass was
used in European seas much earlier than 'the beginning of
the fourteenth century is proved by a nautical treatise of
Raymond Lully of Majorca, the highly ingenious and
eccentric man whose doctrines inspired Giordano Bruno with
, enthusiasm when a boy, (*<^) and who was at once a philo-
sophical systematiser, a practical chemist, a christian teacher,
and a person skilled in navigation. He says in his book
entitled "Penix de las maravillas del orbe," written in 1286,
that mariners made use in his time of '' measuring instru-
ments, of sea charts, and of magnetic needles/' (*oi) The
early voyages of the Catalans to the' north coast of Scotland
and to the west coast of tropical Africa, (Don Jayme Ferrer,
in the month of August 1346, reached the mouth of the
Eio de Ouro), and the discovery of the Azores (the Bradx
Islands of Picigano's map of the world in 1367) by the
Normans, remind us that the open western ocean was navi-
gated long before Columbus, That navigation of the high
seas which, under the Boman empire, had been ventured
upon in the Indian Ocean between Ocelis and the coast of
Malabar in reliance upon the regularity of the periodical
direction of the winds, {^^) was here performed under the
guidance of the magnetic needle.

The implication of astronomy to navigation was prepared
by the influence which, from the thirteenth to the fifteenth
century, was exerted, in Italy by Andalone del Nero and
John Bianchini who corrected the Alphonsine astronomical
tables, and in Germany by Nicolaus of Cusa, {*^^) Georg von
Peuerbach, and Begiomontanus. Astrolabes capable of being
used at sea for the determination of time, and of geographical
latitudes by meridian altitudes^ underwent gradual improve-

niB UNIVJEESE. — OCEAiaC DISCOVBMBS. 869

ment from the instruments used by the pilots of Majorca de-
scribed by Raymond Lully {^^) in 1295, in his " Arte de
Navegar," to that which Martin Behaim made in 1484 at
Lisbon, and which was perhaps only a simplification of the
meteoroscope of his friend Regiomontanus. When the Infante
Henry (Duke of Yiseo) the great encourager of navigation,
and himseK a navigator, founded a school of pilots at Sagres,
Maestro Jayme of Majorca was named its director. Martin
Behaim was desired by king John 11. of Portugal to compute
tables for the sun's declination, and to instruct pilots to
'^ navigate by the altitudes of the sun and stars/' Whether
the log line, which makes it possible to estimate the length
of the course passed over, whilst the direction is given by the
compass, was known, as eady as the end of the fifteenth
century, cannot be determined, but it is certain that Pigafetta,
a companion of Magellan, speaks of the log (la catena a
poppa) as of a long known means of measuring the distance
passed over. (*°s)

The influence of Arabian civilisation on Spanish and
Portuguese navigation, through the astronomical schools of
Cordova, Seville, and Granada, is not to be overlooked : the
large instruments of Cairo and Bagdad were imitated on a
small scale for maritime use. The names were also trans-
ferred; the "astrolabon'' which Martin Behaim attached to
the main mast belongs originally to Hipparchus. When
Vasco de Gama landed on the east coast of Africa, he
found the Indian pilots at Melinda acquainted with
the use of astrolabes and cross staffs. (*o6) Thus, by
intercommunication consequent on more extended inter-
course between nations, as weU as by original inven-
tion, and by the mutual aids to advancement furnished by

260 EP00S8 nr thb hisiobt ot thb GONrmcpLiTioN oi

mathematical and astionomioal knowledge, every thing was
gradually prq)ared for the great geographical achievements,
which have distinguished the close of the fifteenth and the
early portion of the sixteenth centuries, or the thirty yean
from 1492 to 1522, namely,— the discovery of tropical
America, the rapid determination of its form, the passage
round the southern point of Africa to India, and the first
drcumnavigation of the globe. Men's minds were also
stiniulated and rendered more acute to receive the immense
accession of new phenomena, to work out the results of what
was thus obtained, and by their comparison to render them
available for the formation of higher and more general vievs
of the physical Universe.

It will suffice to allude here to a few only of the principal
elements of these higher views, which were capable of con-
ducting men to a farther insight into the connection of the
phenomena of the globe. In a careful study of the original
works of the earliest historians of the Cbnquista, we often
discover with astonishment in the. Spanish writers of the
sixteenth century the germ of important physical truths.
At the sight of a continent in the wide waste of waters &r
removed from other lands, many of the important questions
which occupy us in the present day presented themselves to
the awakened curiosity both of the first voyagers and of those
who collected thefar narrations; — questions respecting the
unity of the human race, and its deviations from a common
normal type ; — ^the migrations of nations, and the relationship
of languages which often shew greater differences in their
radical words than in their flexions or granunatical forms ;—
the possibility of the migration of particular species of plants
or animals ; — ^the cause of the trade winds, and of the constant

THE UNIVEBSE.— OGBANIO DISCOVBBIES. 2Q1

cQcrents of the ocean; — ^the regalar decrease of temperature
aa the declivities of the .Cordilleras^ and in successive strata
of water in descending in the depths of the ocean; — and on
the reciprocal operation upon each other of the different vol-
canoes forming chams^ and their influence on the frequency of
earthquakes as well as on the extent of the circles of commotion*
The groundwork of what we now term physical geography^
(abstracting from it mathematical considerations^) is found
in the Jesuit Joseph Acosta^s " Historia natural y moral de
las Indias/' as well as in the work by Gonzalo Hernandez de
Oviedo, which appeared only twenty years after the death
of Columbus. Never, sipce the commencement of civil
society, was there an epoch in which the sphere of ideas aa
regards the external world and geographical relations was so
suddenly and wonderfully enlarged, or in which thQ desire
of observing nature under different latitudes and at different
elevations above the level of the sea, and of multiplying the
means by which her secrets might be interrogated, was more
keenly felt.

It has, perhaps, as I have elsewhere remarked, (*°^) been
erroneously supposed, that the value of these great discoveries,
each of which in turn promoted other?, — of these twofold
conquests in the physical and in the intellectual world, — ^was
not felt until its recognition in our" own days, when the
history of the intellectual cultivation of mankind is i;iiade a
subject of philosophic study. Such a supposition ^
refuted by the writings of the cotemporaries of Columbus.
The feelings of the most talented among them anticipated
the influence which the events of the latter part of th^ fif-
teenth century would exert on mankind, Peter Martyr de
Anghiera (*°®) says, in his letters written in 1493 and 1494if

262 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOBY OF THE CONTEHPLATION OF

''Every day brings to us new wonders from a new world,
from those western antipodes which a certain Genoese
(Christophoms quidam vir Ligur) has discovered. Sent bj
onr monarchs^ Terdinand and Isabella, he could with diffi-
culty obtain three ships, since what he said was regarded as
febulous. Our friend Pomponius lidstua" (one of the most
distinguished promoters of classical literature, and perse-
cuted at Bome on account of his religious opinions), ''could
hardly refrain from tears of joy, when I gave him the first
tidings of an event so unhoped for/' Angliiera, from whom
these words are taken, was a highly intelligent and distin-
guished statesman at the court of Ferdinand the Catholic
and Charles Y., was once sent as ambassador to Egypt, and
was a personal friend of Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, Se-
bastian Cabot, and Cortes. His long life comprised the
discovery of the westernmost of the Azores (Corvo), and the
expeditions of Diaz, Columbus, Gama, and Magellan. Pope
Leo X. ''continued to a very late hour in the night^' read-
ing to his sister and the cardinals, Anghiera's Oceanica. '
Anghiera says, " henceforward I would not willingly leave
Spain again, for I am here at the fountain-head of the tid-
ings from the newly discovered lands, and T may hope, as
the historian of such great events, to obtain for my name
some fame with posterity. (*09)^' Thus vividly did cotempo-
raries feel the splendour of events, of which the remem-
brance will survive through all ages.

Columbus, in sailing westward of the meridian of the
Azores, through an entirely unexplored sea, and employing
the newly-improved astrolabe for the determination of his
position, sought the east of Asia by the western route, not
as an adventurer, but according to a preconceived and

THE TJNTVEESB.-^OCEANIO DISCOVEUIES. 268

steadfasUj pursued plan. He had indeed on boards the sea-
chart which the Morentine physician and astronomer, Tos-
canelli, had sent to him in 1477, and which fifty-three years
after his death was still in the possession of Bartholomew
de las Casas. According to the manuscript history of las Casas
which I have examined, this was the Carta de Marear, (*^^)
which the Admiral shewed, on the 25th of September, 1492,
to Martin Alonso Rnzon, and on which several out-lying
islands were drawn. But if Columbus had only followed
the chart of his counsellor Toscanelli, he would have held a
more northern course, and have kept along a parallel of
latitude from Lisbon ; instead of this, in the hope of reaching
Zipangu (Japan) more quickly, he sailed for half the distance
in the latitude of Gomera, one of the Canary Islands, and
subsequently diminishing his latitude, found himself on the
7th of October 1492, in 25-^°. Uneasy at not having yet
discovered the coasts of Zipangu, which according to his
reckoning he should have met with two hundred and sixteen
nautical miles more to the East, he, after a long, debate, gave
way to the commander of the Caravel Pinta, Martin Alonso
Pinzon, (one of the three rich and influential brothers who
were hostile to Columbus), and steered towards the south-
west. The course thus altered, led on the 12th of October,
to the discovery of Guanahani.

We must here pause a while, in order to notice a very
remarkable . instance of the wonderful enchainment and
connection, whichUnks small and apparently trivial occur-
rences with great events affecting the world^s destiny.
Washington Irving has justly stated, that if Columbus, resist-
ing the counsel of Martin Alonso Pinzon, h^d continued to sail
on towards the west, he would have entered the warm current

264 EPOCHS IK THE HISTOET OF THE COTSTEMUJLTIOS Of

of the Gulf stream^ have reached Honda, and thence perbipB
have been carried to Cape Hatteras and Yirginia; a circom-
stance of immeasurable importance, since it might have given
the present United States of America aBomanCatholicSpanish
population, instead of a later arriving Protestant English one.
*'It is," said Knzon to the Admiral, '^as if something wliis-
pered to my heart (el corazon me da) that we must change
our course." He even maintained in the celebrated lawsuit
(1513-1515), wliich he conducted against the heirs of
Columbus, that on this account the discovery of Am^ca
was due to him only. But Pinzon owed in fact
suggestion, or what '' his heart whispered to him/' as an
sailor from Mogner related in the same lawsuit, to the flight
of a flock of parrots which he saw flying in the ev^iing
towards the southwest, for the purpose, as he might suppose^
of sleeping among trees or bushes on shore. Never had
the flight of birds more important consequences. It may
be said to have determined the first settlements on the new
Continent, and its distribution between the Latin and
Germanic races (*").

The march of great events, like the sequence of natural
phenomena, is regulated by laws of which a few <Hily are
known to us. The fleet which King Emanuel of Portugal sent
under the command of Pedro Alvarez Cabral to India, by
the route discovered by Gama, was driven out of its course
to the coast of Brazil, on the twenty-second of April, 1500.
From the zeal which, from the time of the enterprise of
Diaz (1487), the Portuguese shewed for sailing round ite
Cape of Good Hope, accidents similar to those which the
currents of the ocean occasioned to the ships of Cabrali
could hardly have failed to occur. Thus the Afiicai

TSE ITNIVBRSE. — OCEANIC DISCOVEHIBB. S65

discoveries would have led to that of America vonth of
the equator; and Bobertaon ^ justified in describing it aB •
in the destiny of manldnd^ that before the end of the fifteenth
century the new continent should be known to European
navigat(»rs.

Amongst the characteristic qualities possessed by Ghris-
toj^er Columbus^ we must especially disiingttish the pene-
trating glance and keen sagacity with which, though without
kamed or scientific culture, and without acquired knowledge
in physics or in natural history, he could seize and combine
the various phenomena of the external world- On arriving
'' in a new world and under a new heaven,'^ (♦^^j jj^ noticed
carefully the form of the land, the physiognomy of the
vegetation, the habits of the animals, the distribution of
heat, and the variations of the earth's magnetism. The old
navigator, whilst endeavouring to find the spices of India,
and the rhubarb (ruibarba) which had already acquired so
much celebrity through Arabian and Jewish physicians, and
through the reports of Bubruquis and the Itahan travellers,
examined very closely the roots, fruits, and form of the leaves
of the plants which fell under his observation. In this
portion of our work, where we desire to recal the influence
which the great epoch of nautical enterprizes and discoveries
exercised on the enlargement of men's views of nature, our
descriptions will become more animated by being attached
to the individuality of a great man. In the journal of his
voyage and in his accounts, which were published for the
first time between 1825 and 1829, we find allusions to
almost all the subjects to which scientific activity was after-
wards directed in the latter half of the fifteenth and the
whole of the sixteenth centuries.

266 EPOCHS nr the histoey of the contemplation ot

It is sufficient to recal in a general manner, all that the
geography of the western hemisphere gained from the period,
when, at his country seat, Fer<^ Naval, on the beautiful bay
of Sagres, the Infante Dom Henry the Navigator sketched his
first plan of discovery, to the epoch of the South Sea expedi-
tions of Gaetano and Cabrillo. The daring enterprizes of the
Portuguese, the Spaniards, and the English, testify how
powerfully the desire for the great and boundless in geogra-
phical space had made itself felt, suddenly opening as it
were a new sense. The advances in the art of navigation,
and the application of astronomical methods to the correetion
of a ship^s reckoning, favoured the efforts which gave to this
age its peculiar character, and disclosed to men the true
features of the globe which they inhabit. The discovery of
the mainland of tropical America, which took place on the 1st
of August, 1498, was seventeen months later than Cabot's
arrival off the Labrador coast of North America. Columbus
first saw the Terra firma of South America, not as has beai
hitherto beUeved on the mountainous coast of Faria, but in the
Delta of the Orinoco east of Caf.o Macareo. (*^3) Sebastian
Cabot (***) landed on the 24th of June, 1497, on the coast
of Labrador between 56° and 58° of latitude. I have
shewn above that this inhospitable coast had been visited
five centuries earher by the Icelander Leif Erikson.

Columbus on his third voyage set more value on the
pearls of the islands of Margarita and Cubagua, than on the
discovery of the Terra firma; as he was persuaded until his
death, that, in his first voyage, when at Cuba in November
1492, he had akeady touched a part of the continent
of Asia. (*^^) Prom hence (as his son Don Fernando,
and his friend the Cura de los Palacios, relate,) if he had

THB XTNIYESSE. — OCBAiaO DISCOYEnOES. £67

hud sufficient proTisions, his design would have been to
have contiuued his navigation towards the west, and to have
returned to Spain, (*^®) either by water^ passing by Ceylon
(Taprobane) and '^ rbdeando toda la tierra de los Negros/' or
by land, by Jeirutolem and Jaffa. Such were the projecter
which Columbus cherished in 1494, proposing to himself
the drcmnnavigation of the globe, four years before Yasco
de Gama, and twenty-seven years before Magellan and Sebas-
tian de Elcano. The preparations for Cabof s second voyage^
in which he penetrated among masses of ice as far as 67^^
North latitude, seeking a North- West passage to Cathay
(China), led him to think of a voyage to the North pole, (a
lo del polo arctico), to be made at some future period. {^^'^)
T)ie more it became gradually recognised, that the newly-dis-
covered lands formed a connected continent stretching unin-
terruptedly from Labrador to the promontory of Paria, — ^and
even as the celebrated lately-discovered map of Juan de la Cosa
(1500) shewed, far beyond the equator into the Southern
hemisphere, — ^the more ardent became the desire to find a
passage to the westward, either in the North or in the
(South. Next to the rediscovery of the American continent,
and the conviction of its extension in the direction of the
meridian from Hudson's Bay to Cape Horn (discovered by
Garcia Jofre de Loaysa,) {^^^) the knowledge of the South
Sea or the Pacific Ocean, which bathes the Western coasts of
America, was the most important cosmical occurrence in the.
great epoch which we are now describing.

Ten years before Balboa obtained the first sight of the
South Sea, from the sununit of the Sierra de Quarequa on
the isthmus of Panama, Columbus in sailing along the coast
of Yeragua, had abeady received distinct accoimts of a sea

TOT,. TT. T

268 EPOCHS IS THS HI8T0BT 07 THB OONTEMPULTION OF

to the westward of that land^ ''which would conduct in less
than nine days' voyage to the Chersonesos aurea of Ptolemy^
and to the mouth of the Ganges/' In the same Carta
rarissima which contains the beautiful and highly poetic
narration of a dream^ the Admiral says that at the part near
the Bio del Belen " the two opposite coasts of Yeragua are
situated relatively to each other like Tortosa near the
Mediteranean and Fuenterrabia in Biscay^ or like Yenice
and Ksa/' This bouthem or western sea, the great Pacific
ocean, was at that time still r^arded as only a continuation
of the Sinus Magnus {fnyac koXitoq) of Ptolemy, beyond
which lay the golden Chersonesus, whilst Cattigara and the
land of the Sin»e (Thinfle) was supposed to form its eastern
shore. The fanciful hypothesis of Hipparchus, according
to which this eastern coast of the great Gulf, or Siuns
Magnus, joined itself on to a part of the continent of Africa
advancing far to the East, (*^9) (thus making the Indian ocean
a closed inland sea,) was happily little regarded in the middle
ages, notwithstanding their attachment to the opinions of
Ptolemy; it would doubtless have exercised an unfavourable
influence on the direction of the great nautical enterprizes
of the age.

The discovery and navigation of the Pacific, mark an epoch
so much the more important in reference to the recognition
of great cosmical relations, as it was by their means, and
scarcely therefore three centuries and a half ago, that not
only the western coast of America and the eastern coast of
Asia were first known, but also, what is of much greater
importance, on account of the meteorological results
which follow from it, that the prevailing highly erroneous
views respecting the relative areas of land and water upon

THE TJNIVBESE. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. &69

the surface of the globe^ were first dispelled. The relative
magnitude and distribution of these areas are most in-
fluential conditions in determining the quantity of moisture
contained in the air, the variations of atmospheric pressure^
the degree of vigour and luxuriance of vegetation, the more
or less extensive distribution of particular kinds of animals,
and many other great and general physical phenomena. The
larger extent of fluid surface (in the proportion of 2^ to 1),
does indeed restrict the habitable range for the settlements of
man, and for the nourishment of the greater number of
mammaUa, birds, and reptiles; but it is nevertheless, under
the present laws which govern organised beings, a beneficent
arrangement and necessary condition for the preservation
and well being of all the living inhabitants of continents.

When at the end of the fifteenth century there arose an
earnest and pressing desire to find the shortest way to the
Asiatic spice lands, — and when the idea of reaching the Ekst,
by sailing to the West, germinated almost simultaneously in
the minds of two men of Italy, the navigator Columbus,
and the physician and astronomer Paul Toscanelh, — (*2o) it
was generally beUeved, in conformity with the opinion put
forward by Ptolemy in the Almagest, that the old continent,
fi*om the western coast of the Iberian peninsula to the
meridian of the easternmost Sinse, occupied a space of 180^;
or in other words, that it extended from East to West,
over an entire haK of the globe. Columbus, misled by a
long series of erroneous inferences, extended this space to
240®, making the desired eastern coast of Asia advance as far
as the meridian of San Diego in New Califomia. Columbus
hoped therefore that he would only have to sail over 120?,
instead of the 231° which the rich trading city of Quinsay,
for example, is actually situated to the westward ci the

870 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOET OF THE OONTEMFLATIOK OF

exkemity of the Iberian peninsula. Toscanelli^ m hii
correspondence with the Admiral^ diminished the breadth of
-the ocean in a manner still more singular and more favoor-
able to his plans. He made the distance by sea tnm
Portugal to Cliina only 52^ of longitude, learing, acoordkig
to the aneient sayi&g of Esdras, six-sev^ths of the ettrth Aej,
Columbus, in a letter which he addressed to Queen !babdia
from Hayti ^nmediately after the accoinplishttieiit of his
third voyage, shewed himself the moi« inclined towards His
liew, because it was the same which had been defended hj
the man whom he regarded as the highest authority, Cardkkd
ffAilly, in his ^' Imago Mundi."' («i)

Six years after Balboa sword in hand and advancing up
to his knees in the waves li^d daimed possession of th«
entire South Sea for Castille, and two yieass* after has head
had fallen by the hand of the executioner in the revolt
against the tyrannical Pedrarias Davila, {^^^) Magellan
appeared in the Pacific (^7 November 1520)., and navigated
ihd wide ocean for more than ten thom^md geographical
miles ; by a singular latality seeing only, — b^re discover-
ing the Marianas, (his Islas de los Ladrcmes or de las Vdas
Jjatinas), and the Philippines^ — ^two small uninhabitedidands
(the Besventuradas or Unfortunate islands), one of which, if
we might trust his journal and ship's reckoning; would bq
to the East of the Low Islands, and the other a little to the
South West of the Archipelago of Mendana. {^^) Sebastian
de Elcano, after the murder of Magellan in the island of ZelMi,
completed the first circumnavigation of the gkbe in the ship
Victoria, and received for his amKMial bearings a t^restnal
^obe^ with the glorious inscription : '^ Primus circiimdedisti
jifi^J* He entered the harbour of San Lucar in 8q)tember
1.522; and before an entire year had dapsed^ w^ find thet

J

THE imiVBllSB. — OCBAjqiC DISOOVEBIES. 471

Emperor Charles urging^ in a ktter to Hernando Cortes,
the discovery ci a passage ''which should shorten the d»^
tance to the spice lands by two-thirds/' The expedition of
Alvaro de Saavedra was sent jfrom a harboHT of the proviiice
of Zaoatula on the west coast of Meitico, to thte Moluccas;
and in 1527, Hernando Cortes wrote, from the newly
conquered Mexican capital of Tenochtilftri, "to the kings
of Z^bu and Tidor in the Asiatic Ardiipelago/' So rapid
was the enlargement of the geographical horizon, and with
it the desire for an extensive and aiiiiinated intercourse with
remote nations.

Subsequently the conqueror of New Spain went himself
in search of discoveries in the Pacific, and of a north-eastern
))assage from thence to Europe. Men could not accustom
themselves to the idea that the continent really extended
uninterruptedly from such high southern to high northern
latitudes. When the report came from the coast of
California that the expedition of Cortes had perished, flie
wife of the great warrior, Juana de Zuniga, the beautifal
daughter of the Conde de Aguilar, had two ships prepared
in order to seek for more certain tidings. (*24) In 1541
Cafifomia was already known as an arid peninsula without
wood, although this was agab forgotten in the 1 7th c^tuiy .
We can discover in the accounts which we now possess of
£alboa, Pedrarias Davila, and Hernando Cortes, that at that
'period men hoped to discover in the South S^a, as a part Df
the Indian ocean, groups of ''islands rich in gold, preciotis
Intones, spices, and pearls.^' Excited foncy impelled men to
great ente.rprizes; and the hardihood of these, whether
successful or unfortunate, reacted on the imagination and
inflamed it still more powerfully. Thus, at this extraordinary

272 EPOCHS ly THE HISTOUY OF THE GQlTCEKPLATIOir OF

period of the Conquista^ (a period when men's heads were
dizzy with strenuous efforts, heroic achievements, deeds of
violence, and discoveries by sea and land), notwithstanding
the entire absence of political freedom, many circumstances
conspired to favour individual development, and to cause
some more highly gifted minds to attain to much that was
noble. They err who regard the Conquistadores as led only
by a thirst for gold, or even exclusively by retigions
&naticism. Dangers always exalt the poetry of life ; and
moreover, the powerful age which we here seek to depict in
regard to its influence on the development of cosmical ideas»
gave to all enterprizes, as well as to the impressions of nature
offered by distant voyages, the charm of novelty and surprise^
which begums to be wanting to our present more learned age in
the many regions of the earth which are now open to us. It
was not only a hemisphere, but almost two-thirds of the
sjyurface of the globe, which was then stitl an unknown
and unexplored world; as unseen as that half of the
moon's disk which the laws of gravitation withdraw f(»r
ever &om the view of the inhabitants of the earth. Our
more deeply investigating age finds, in the increasing
riches of ideas, a compensation for the lessening of that
surprise, which the novelty of great and imposing natural
phenomena once called forth; but this is a compensation
not to the multitude, but to the small number of physicists
acquainted with the state of science, — and to them it is
.ample. To them the increasing insight into the silent
operation of the powers of nature; — ^whether in electro-
magnetism, or in the polarisation of light, in the influence
of diathermal substances, or in the physiological phenom^sa
of living organised beings, offers a world of wonders

J

THE XTNIVEBSE. — OCEANIC DISOOVBKIES. 273

gradually tuiveiling itself^ and of which we have yet scarcely
reached the threshold !

The Sandwich Islands, New Guinea^ and some parts
of New Holland^ were all discovered in the first half of
the 16th century. {^^) These discoveries prepared the way

for those of Cabrillo, Sebastian Vizcaino, Mendana, (*26) and

•

Quiros, whose ^^ Sagittaria^^ is Tahiti, and his "Archipelago
del Espiiitu Santo^^ the New Hebrides of Cook. Quiros was
accompanied by the bold navigator who afterwards gave his
name to Torres Straits. The Pacific no longer appeared as.
it had done to Magellan, a desert waste; it was now
enlivened by islands, which indeed for want of exact astrono-
mical determinations of position, strayed to and fro on the
map like floating lands. The Pacific long continued the
exclusive theatre of the enterprizes of the Spaniards and
Portuguese. The important South Indian Malayan Archi-
pelago, obscurely described by Ptolemy, Cosmas, and Polo,
began to shew itself with more definite outlines after
Albuquerque had established himself in Malacca in 1511,
and after the voyage of Anthony Abreu. It is the especial
merit of the classical Portuguese historian Barros, a cotem-
porary of Magellan and of Camoens, to have apprehended
the peculiarities of the physical and ethnical character of the
Archipelago in so lively a manner, that he first proposed to
distinguish Australian Polynesia as a fifth part of the globe.
It was when the Dutch power acquired the ascendancy in
the Molluccas, that this portion of the globe began to emerge
from obscurity, and to become known to geographers; (*^7)
and then also began the great epoch of Abel Tasman. We do
not jffopose to ourselves to give the history of the several geo-
graphical discoveries, but merely to recal by a passing allusion

274 EPOCHS IN THX HI9I0BT OV TUZ CONTEMPLATION OF

tbe kadiiig occoReiioes, hj irhicbf in a short apace of iim,
and in dose and connected succession^ in obedi^iee to the
aaddenlj awakened desire tasearch oat the wide, the unknomi
and the distant, two-thiids of the eairth^s soxfaoe wore laU
open.

Together with this enlarged and inercasmg geographical
knowledge of land and sea, there arose also a nuMre enkffged
insight into the exist^ce and tiie laws of the powers «
forces of nature, — ^the distribution of heat over the surfsoe
of the earth, — ^the abundance of organic forma, and the
limits of their distribution. The progress which di&rent
branches €i science had made during the course of tb
middle ages, (which, as regards science, have been too litUe
esteemed,) accelerated the just apprehension and thoughi&I
comparison of the unbounded wealth of physical phenomraia^
which was now presented at one time to obsen/atioB.
The impressions produced on men's minds were so mud
the fliore profound, and the more fitted to incite to tihe
investigation of cosmical laws, as before the middle of ths
16th century, the western nations of Europe had already
explored the new continent, in the neighbourhood of the
coasts at least, in the most different degrees of latitude; and
because it was here that they first became acquainted with
the true equatorial zone, where, moreover, the remarkable
conformation of the earth's surface presented to their viev
in close approximation, at varying degrees of devatioo,
the most striking contrasts of vegetation and of climate*
If I here find myself again induced to allude to ibfd
pecuHar privileges of these regions, in the inspiring influeDee
belonging to a land of lofty mountains in the equinoctial
2one, I must plead once more as my justification that, to

TEH T7]fI7]SB8B«*-OCBANIC BISGOTEBISS. 875

their inhftbitants alone is it given^ to behold at once aQ the
stars of hearen, and almost all the families of fonns of the
vegetable worid; — but to behold is not necessarily to
observe, via. to compare, and to combine.

Although in Columbus, as I think I have shewn in
anoth^ work, notwithstanding the ^itiie absence of any pe-
liminary knowledge of natural history, the mere contact with
great natural pheotomena;, developed in i^ remarkaUe and
varied maimer the perceptions and faculties required fof
accurate observation, yet we must by no means assume a
similar development in those who composed the rude and
warlike mass of the Gonquistadores. That which Europe
Tinquestionably owes to the discovery of America, — ^in the
gradual enrichment of the physical knowledge of the oon«
stitation of the atmospheite, and its effects on human orga-
nization,— the .distributiim of climates «n the declivities of
the Cordilleras, — ^the elevation of the snew-line in diflS^nt de-
grees of latitude in the two hemispheres, — ^the arrangement of
volcanoes in chains, — the circumscribed area of the circle iyf
commotion in earthquakes,— the laws of magnetism,— the
direction of the currents of the ocean,— and the gradations of
aew forms of plants and animals,— it owes to a different and
more peaceful class of travellers, and to a small number of
distinguished men among municipal functionaries, ecclesias-
ties, and physicians. These men dwelling in old Indiaai
towns, some of which are upwards of twelve thousand feet
above the level of the sea, could observe with their own eyes,
and could test and combine that which others had seen, wil^
the superior advantage of long residence; and could collect,
describe, and send to tiieir European friends, the natural
fffoductions of the country* It is sufficient here to

276 EPOCHS IK THE HI8TOBT 07 THB OONTVICPLATION Of

name Gomaray Oviedo, Aoosta and Hernandez. Colmnbus
broaght home from his first vojage some natural prodac-
tions^ — ^froits and skins of animals. In a letter written
from Segovia (August 1494), Queen Isabella requests the
Admiral to continue his collections, and particularly desires
"all birds belonging to the shores and the woods d
countries having a different climate and seasons.'' IVom the
same west coast of Africa^ from which, almost 2000 yean
earlier, Hanno brought '^tanned skins of wild women,'' (the
skins of the great Gorilla ape), to be suspended in a temple,--
Martin Behaim's friend Cadamosto, brought to the Infante
Henzy the Navigator, black elephant's hair a palm and a half
long. Hernandez, the surgeon of Philip II., and sent by that
monarch to Mexico, to have all the most remarkable objects
of the vegetable and animal kingdoms in that country
represented by fine drawings, was able to augment his
collections by copies of several very carefully executed
pictures of specimens of natural history, which had been
painted by command of a king of Tezcuco, Nezahualcoyotl,
(*28) half a century before the arrival of the Spaniards.
Hernandez also availed himself of a collection of medicinal
plants, which he found stiU growing in the ancient Mexican
garden of Huaxtepec. Owing to its proximity to a newly
established Spanish hospital, (^^^) this garden had not been
laid waste by the Gonquistadores. Almost at the same time,
the fossil bones of Mastodons found on the plateaus of
Mexico, New Granada, and Peru, which afterwards became
of so much importance in reference to the theory of the
successive elevation of different chains of mountains, wore
collected and described. The names of Giants' bones,
and Giants' fields (Campos de Gigantes), shew how^

1

THE UNIVERSE.— OCEANIC DISCOVBKIES. 277

fEuaciM were the interpretations first attached to these
remains.

During this active period, the enlargement of cosmical views
was promoted by the immediate contact of numerous bodies
of Europeans, not only with the &ee aspect and grand features
of nature in the mountains and plains of America, but also
(in consequence of the successful navigation of Yasco de
Gfuna) with the eastern coast of AMca, and with India. As
early as the commencement of the sixteenth century, a
Portuguese physician, Garcia de Orta, to whom the Muse
of Gamoens has paid a patriotic tribute of praise, estabhshed,
on the present site of Bombay, and under the auspices of the
noble Martin Alfonso de Sousa, a botanic garden in which he
cultivated the medicinal plants of the vicinity. The impulse
to direct and independent observation was now every where
awakened, whilst the cosmographic writings of the middle
ages were rather compilations, reproducing the opinions of
classical antiquity, than the results of personal observation.
Two of the greatest men of the sixteenth century, Conrad
G^ner and Andreas Gsesalpinus, honourably opened a new
path in zoology and botany.

Li order to afford a more lively idea of .the early influence
which the oceanic discoveries exercised on the enlargement
of physical and astro-nautical knowledge, I will call attention
at the dose of this description to some bright points of light
which we see already gUm];nering in the writings of Columbus.
Their first feeble ray is the more deserving of careful regard
because they contained the germ of general cosmical views.
I pass over the proofs of the results here presented to my
readers, because I have already given them in detail in an
earUer work, entitled ^^Critical examination of the historic de*

278 EPOCHS IK THB HISTOBT 07 TH8 COITTSICPLATION 07

vdopment of the geographical knowledge of thenew world^aad
of nautical astronomy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuiies.''
In order^ however^ to avoid its being supposed that I have
Bnduly mingled modem physical views with the remarb
ef Columbus^ I will commenoe with the Html translatioa
of a portion of a letter written by the Admiral in October
1498 from Hayti.

''Each time that I saQ from Spain to the Indies^ I find
as soon as I arrive a hundred nautical miles to the west of
the Azores^ an extraordinary alteration in the movaneut of
the heavenly bodies^ in the temperature of the air^ and m
the character of the ocean. I have observed these alteratioQi
with particular care, and have recognised that the needle of
the mariner's compass (agujas de marear)^ the dechnadcm of
which had been to the north-east^ now turned to the nortlh
west; and when I had passed this Hue (raya), as if I hail
passed the ridge of a hill (como quien traspone una cuesta);
Z found the sea covered with such a mass of weed resembling
small branches of pine trees with fruits like pistachio nuls.
that we were led to expect there would not be suffieieait
water^ and that the ships would run upon a shoal. Befon
we had arrived at this line no trace of such sea-weed was to
be seen. Also at this boundary line (a hundred miles west
of the Azores) the sea becomes at once still and cahn^ scarcdy
ever agitated by a breeze. As I came down from the GanaEf
Islands to the parallel of Sierra Leone I had to snstam ft
terrible heat^ but as soon as we had passed beyond the
above-mentioned line (west of the meridiGm of the Azores)
the climate altered, the air became temperate, and the
freshness increased the farther we advanced.''

This passage^ which is elucidated by several others in

^

I

THE XJMnVERSB. — OCEANIC DISOOVEEIES. 279

the writings of Columbns^ contains views of physical geo-
graphy^ remarks on the influence of geographical longitude^
on the declination of the magnetic needle^ on the inflection
of the isothermal lines between the west coast of the old
and the east coast of the new Continent^ on the situation o{
the great Sargasso bank in i^ basin of the Atlantic^ and oa
the relations of this part of the ocean to the atmosphere
above it. Erroneous observations {^) in the neighbourhood
of the Aztnres on the position of the Pole star had misled
Columbus as early as the period of his first voyage, &om the
deficiency of his mathematical knowledge, to entertain the
bdief of an inregnlwrity in the spherical form of the earth.
According to hid view, the earth was protuberant in the
western hemisphere, so that the ships gradually arrived
nearer to the sky on approaching the line (raya) where the
mimetic needle points to the true north; and thisdevation
he supposed to be the cause oi the cooler temperature. The
scdemn reception of the Admiial at Barcelona took place in
April 1493, and bti the 4th of May of the same year Pope
Alexander VI. signed the celebrated bull whidi '' establishes
for ever'' the demarcation line (*^^) between the Spanish smd
Portuguese possessions at'a hundred miles westward of the
Azores. If we bear in mind that Cdumbus, immediately
after his return from his first voyage of discovery, purposed
to go himself to Borne, in order, as he said, ''to rq)ort to
the Pope all that he had discovered,^^ and if we remember
the importance which the cotemporaries of Cdiumbus attached
to the line ot no variation, it may be admitted that there
are grounds for a suggestion first put forward by myself,
that at the moment of his highest court favour Columbus

280 EPOCHS IK THE HISTORY OF THE CQNTEMPLATION OF

endeavoured to cause '^ a physical line of demarcation to be
converted into a political one/'

The influence which the discovery of America, and the
great nautical enterprizes connected with it exercised so
rapidly on all physical and astronomical knowledge, is most
strikingly felt when we recal the first impressions of those
who lived at the period, and the wide range of scientific
endeavours of which the most important part belongs to the
first half of the sixteenth century. Columbus has not only
the incontestable merit of having first discovered a "line
without magnetic variation," but also of having, by his
considerations on the progressive increase of westerly dedina-
tion in receding from that line, given the first impulse to
the study of terrestrial magnetism in Europe. The circam'
stance, that almost every where the ends of a freely suspended
magnet do not point exactly to the north and south geo-
graphical poles, might easily have been recognised, even with
very imperfect instruments, in the Mediterranean, and in other
places where the declination amounted in the twelfth centoiy
to more than eight or ten degrees. But it is not improbabk
that the Arabs, or the Crusaders who were in contact with
Eastern nations from 1096 to 1270, in spreading the use of
Chinese or Indian compasses, may also have called attention,
even at that early period, to the circumstance of magn^
needles pointing in different parts of the world to the north-
east or to the north-west, as to a long-known phenomenon.
We know positively from the Chinese Penthsaoyan, whidi
was written under the dynasty of the Song {^^) between
1111 and 1117, that the manner of measuring the amount
of westerly declination had been then long understood.

THE UNIVERSE.— OCEANIC DISCOVEEIES. 281

That which belongs to Columbus is not the first observation
of the existence of the variation (which, for example, is noted
in the map of Andrea Bianco in 1436), but the remark
which he made on the 13th of September, 1492, that *'2J^
east of the Island of Gorvo the magnetic variation changes,
passing from N.E. to N.W/'

This discovery of a "magnetic line without declination"
marks a memorable era in nautical astronomy. It has been
celebrated with just praise by Oviedo, Las Casas and Herrera.
Those who with Livio Sanuto would attribute it to ihe
famous navigator Sebastian Cabot, forget that the first
voyage of the latter, made at the cost of some merchants of
Bristol, and distinguished by its attaining the American
continent, took place five years later than Columbus's first
voyage of discovery. But not only has Columbus the merit
of having discovered the part of the Atlantic in which at that
period the geographic and magnetic meridians coincided;
he also made at the same time the ingenious and thoughtfol
remark, that the magnetic variation might serve to determine
the ship's position in respect to longitude. In the journal
of the second voyage (April 1496) we find him really in-
ferring his position from the observed declination. The
difficulties which oppose this method of determining the
longitude, (more especially in a part of the globe where the
magnetic lines of declination are so much curved that they
do not follow the direction of the meridian, but correspond
even with the parallels of latitude for considerable distances),
were at that period still unknown. Magnetical and astrono-
mical methods were anxiously sought after, in order to deter-
mine, both on land and sea, the points intersected by the ideally
constituted line of demarcation. Neither the state of science

882 EPOCHS IK THB HISTORY G9 THB C01ITEllPLA!tI0N Of

Dor that of the imperfect instruments employed at sea in 1493;
whether for measoring angles or time^ were competeiit to the
practical solution of so difficult a problem. Under thm
circnmstances^ Pope Alexander YI., in presomptnouEfy
dividing half the globe between two powerful stales, rendeied
without knowing it an essential service to nautical asbronomj
and to the physical science of terrestrial magnetism. The
great maritime powers were from that time continuallj
soUcited to entertain innumerable impraeticable proposals.
Sebastian Gabot^ as we learn from his friend Bichard Eden,
still boasted on his death bed that there had been " divioelf
revealed to him an infallible method of finding the longitude/'
This revelation was no other than his firm belief that the
majgnetic declination changed rapidly and regulaijy with
the meridian. The cosmogrs^er Alonso de Santa CroZi
one of the instructors of Charles V., rnidertqok the drawioig
up of the first general ''Variation Charf', {^^) although,
indeed^ from very imperfect observations, as early as 1530,
or a century and a half before Halley.

The ''movement ' of the magnetic lines, the first recogoi*
tion of which is usually ascribed to Gassendi, ' was not ev&k
yet conjectured by William Gilbert ; but at an eadier period,
Acosta, ''from the information of Portuguese navigators,'^
assumed four lines of no declination upon the surface of the
globe. (*34) Hardly had the inclinometer, or dipping needle,
been invented in England by Bobert Norman, in 1576,
than Gilbert boasted that, by means of this instrument, he
could determine the position of a ship in a dark and starless
night (acre caliginoso). (^'^^j Erom my own observations
in the Pacific, I shewed soon after my return to Europe
that, in certain parts of the earth, and under particular local

J

\

THE UNIVERSE. — OCEANIC BISCOTfeBIES. 283

CiTcnmstanees, for example on the coasts of Peru in thr
reason of constant fogs (garua)^ the latitude might be de-
termined from the inclination of the magnetic needle with
stifficient accnracj for the purposes of navigation. I have
dwelt so long on these details^ with the view of shewing
that all the points with which we are now occupied, in re-
ference to an important cosmical subject (with the exception
of the measurement of the intensity of the magnetic force,
and of the horary variations of the dedination), were abeady
spoken of in the 16th century. In the rt^narkable map of
America appended to the Boman edition of the Geography
of Ptolemy in 1508, we find to the north of Gruentlaut
(Greenland) a part of Asia represented, and '^the magnetic
pole^' marked as an insular mountain. Martin Gortez, in
the Breve Compendio de la Sphera (1545), and Livio Sa-
nuto, in the Geographia di Tolomeo (1588), place it more
to the south. Sanuto entertained a prejudice which, strange
to say, has existed even in later times, that a man who
should be so fortunate as to reach the magnetic pole (il
calamitico), would experience there ''alcun miracoloso stu-
pendo effetto.''

Li the department of the distribution of temperature and
meteorology, attention was akeady directed, at the end of the
15th and beginning of the 16th centuries, to the decrease of
temperature (**^) with increasing western longitude, (the in-
flection of the isothermal Hues) ; to the law of rotation of the
winds (**^) generalized by Francis Bacon ; to the diminution
of atmospheric moisture and of the quantity of rain, caused
by the destruction of forests ; (*38) g^d to the decrease of temi*
perature with increasing elevation above the level of the sa%
VOL. H. u

884 EPOCHS TS VHB HISTORT 09 THE OOlfTEXPLATIOir Of

and tile lover limit of perpetoal snow. That this limit is'' a
limction of the geographical latitude'' was first recognised bj
Petnis Martyr Anghiera in 1610. Alonso de Hojeda asd
Amerigo Vespucci had seen the snowy mountains of Santa
Marta (tierras nevadas de Citarma) as early as 1500 ; Sodiigo
Bastidas and Juan de la Cosa examined them more closdj
in 1501 j but it was not until the accounts of the expedi-
tion of Colmenares, which the pilot Juan Vespucci, nephev
of Amerigo, communicated to his patron and fiieod
Anghiera, that the ''tropical snow region'' seen on tb
mountainous shore of the Caribbean sea acquired a great,
and it might be said a cosmical, signification. The lower
limit of perpetual stiow was now brought into connediGn
with the general relations of the decrease of temperatoie
and the diversity of climates. Herodotus, in discussing tk
causes of the rising of the Nile (ii. 22), had positively de-
nied the existence of snowy motmtains south of the trc^ic
of Cancer. Alexander's expeditions, indeed, conducted the
Greeks to the Nevados of the Hindoo Coosh {opf^ ayayyc^] ;
but these are situated between 84^ and 36^ of nortii latitude.
The only notice with which £ am acquainted of '' snow in
the equatorial zone," prior to the discovery of America and
the year 1500, is one which has been vety little attended to
by men of science, and which is contained in the odebr^
inscription of Adulis, which Niebuhr considers to be hki
than Juba and than Augustus. The recognition of Uk
dependence of the lower limit of perpetual snbw on ti»
latitude of the place, {^^^) and the first insight into the law of
the decrease of temperature in an asciending vertical lis^
and the consequent gradual ioweiing, from tiie equator

THE tJNIVEBSI. — OCSANIG DISOOVEBIES. 285

towards the poles^ of a stratum of air of equal coolness,
mark no tmimportant era in the history of our physical
knowledge.

If this knowledge was fiayouied by observations which
wexQ accidental and wholly unscientific in their origin, the
age wfaidL we are describing lost on the other hand, by an
unfortunate combination of circumstances, a great advantage
which it might have received from a purely scientific im-
pulse. The greatest physidst of the 15th century, who
combined distinguished math^ooiatical knowledge with the
most admirable and profound insight into nature, Leonardo
da Yind, was the cotemjporary of Columbus, and died three
jFears after him* This great artist had occupied himself in
meteorology, as well as in hydraulics and optics. His in-
fluence on the age in which he lived was exercised through
the greas woiks of painting which he created, and by his elo-
quent discourse^ but not by his writings. If the physical views
of Leonardo da Yinci had not remained buried in his ma-
nuscripts, the fidd of. observation which the new world
offered would have been ahready cultivated scientificaUy in
many of its parts before the great epoch of Galileo, Pascal,
«id Huygens. Like Francis Bacon, and a full century
before him, hd regarded induction as the only sure method
in natural science ; " dobbiamo comminciare daU' esperienza,
e per mezzo di questa scoprime la ragione.'' (**^)

As, notwithstanding the wsnt of n^easuring mstruments,
islimatie relations in the tropical mountainous regions, the
distribution of temperature, the extremes of atmospheric
dryness and humidity,, and the frequency of electric e^^plo
sions, were often spoken of in the commentaries on the first
land journeys; so., also^ the loarineia very early embraced

286 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOBY OV THB OOllTBlCPIiATION OF

just views in regard to the direction and n^idity of cor.
rents^ wbich^ like rivers of variable breadth, traverse the
Atlantic Ocean. The proper ** equatorial current/' the
movement of the waters between the tropics, was first dfr*
scribed by Columbus. ** The waters move oon los deles ((»
like the vault of heaven) from east to west.'' Even tbs
direction of separate floating masses of sea-weed confirmed
this belief. (^^) A light pan of wrought iron, whic^
he found in the hands of the natives of the island of Gua-
daloupe, led Columbus to conjecture that it might be of
European origin, belonging to a shipwrecked vessd
which the equatorial current might have brought from
the Tberian to the American coasts. In his ge(^ostieal
fancies he regarded the existence of the series of the
smaller West India Islands, as well as the peculiar form
of the larger islands, (the coincidence of the direc-
tion of their coast with the parallels of latitude,) as caused
by the long-continued action of the movement of the sea
within the tropics £rom east to west.

When on his fourth and last voyage the Admiral dis*
covered the north and south direction of the coast of
America, from Cape Oraciaa a Dios to the Lagmia do
Chiriqui, he felt the action of the strong currait which sets
to the N. and N.N. W., and results &om the impinging of the
equatorial current against the opposing line of coast. Aj^«
hiera survived Columbus long enough to be aware of the
deflection of the waters of the Atlantic in its whole course,
to recognise the rotation round the Gulf of Mexico, and
the propagation of this movement to the Tierra de los
Bacallaos (Newfoundland), and the mouth of the St. Law-
rence. I have shewn circumstantially in another place, how

^CHB UNIVISBSB.—- ^cnSANIO DIS0OYEBIE8* 287

nmcli the expedition of Ponoe de Leon^ in 1512, contri«
bated to the formation of more accurate opimons, and have
noticed that, iq a memoir written by Sir Humphry Gilbert
between 1567 and 1576, the movement of the waters of the
Atlantic, from the Gape of Good Hope to the Banks of
^Newfoundland, was treated according to views which agree
idmost entirely with those of my ^cellent deceased Mend,
Major BennelL

The knowledge of the oceanic currents was accompanied
|>y that of the great banks of sea-weed (Fncus natans), the
^' oceanic meadows'' which offer the remarkable spectacle of
(he accumulation of a '^ social planf over a surface ahnost
aeven times greater than that of France. The ** great Fucus
)>ank,'' the proper '^ Mar de Sai^asso,'' extends between 19^
and 84^ of north latitude. Its principal axis is about 7^
^est of the Island of Corvo. The " lesser Fucus bank'' is
idtuated in the space between the Bermudas and the
Bahamas. Winds and partial currents affect in different
years the position and extent of these AtlantiG sea-weed
meadows, for the first description of which we are indebted to
Columbus. No other sea in either hemisphere shews an as-
pemblage of social plants, on a similar scale of magnitude. (^^)

But the important epoch of the great geographical
discoveries, besides suddenly laying open an unknown
bemisphere of the terrestrial globe, also enlarged the view of
the r^ons of space, or to speak more distinctly, of the
visible celestial vault. As man, to quote a fine expression
of Gardlaso de la Yega, '' in wandering to distant land%
flees earth and stars change together, (^3)'' so the advance
(o the equator, on both sides ol Africa, and in the western
bemisphere beyond the aouthem exkemity of America, offered

t88 EPOCHS IK THB BISTGHJ 09 THB OONmCPLASlON OP

to the navigators and land travellers of the period of wUdi
we are treating, the magoifio^t qpectade oi the soothem
constellations, longer and more frequently than oonld haw
been the case in the tune of Hiram or of the Ftdle-
mies, or nnder the Boman Empire, or in the conrse of
the commerce of the Arabians in the Red Sea, and in the
Indian Ocean between the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb and
the western peninsula of India. Amerigo Vespnod^ in bis
letters, Yioente Yanez Pinzon, Figafetta who acoonqpaided
Magellan and Elcano, as well as Andrea GarsaU in his
voyage to Godun in Eastern India in the b^imnng of thd
16th century, have given us a recwd of the vivid impresskms
produced by the earliest ccmtemplation of the southoa
heavens beyond the feet of the Centaur, and the fine
constellation of the Ship. Amerigo, who had more literary aft
quirement than the others, bat who was also more indinedtoa
vain-glorious display, praises not unpleasingly the brightneto^
the picturesque beauty, and the novel aspect of the constdh-
tions which circle round the southern pole, of which ik
more immediate vidniiy is poor in stars. He affirms m his
letter to Pierfirancesco de Medici, that on his third voysga
he occupied himself carefully with observing the soutben
constellations, measuring the polar distance ol the prinetpsi
amongst them, and making diawinga of them. What hi
communicates on the subject does not indeed lead us gmtif
to regret the loss of his measurements,

I find the first description of the enigmaticdl Uaek
patches, (Coalbags) given by Anghiera in 1510. Th^ had
been remarked as early as 1499 by the oompanions of
Yicente Yanez Finzon, on the expedition which went bom
Palos and took possession of the Staailiaa Cqpe St^

Angostiae. {^) The Caaopo foaeo (Oanopxia niger) of Ame-
rigo^ is probably one of these '' ooal bags/' The acute AiCQst%
compares it to the darkened p(Hrti0n of the moon's disk in
partial eclipses^ aoad appears to ascribe it to a void in space^ or
to t^e absence of stars. Bdgaad has shewn how the mention
of tiie '^ coal bags/^ of which Acosta expressly says that they
«8 risible in Pern but not in Eniope, and that they moYC
like other stars round the South Pole^ lias been mistaken by
a celebrated astronomer for the first notice of spots in thD
sun. (^^) The knowledge of the two Magelianie clouds
has been erroneously ascribed to Pigafetta; I find that
Anghiera^ firom the observations of Portuguese naTigators,
mentions these douds eight years before the completion of
Magellan's circumnavigation of the gbbe: be compares
their mild brightness with&at ctf theMilky Way. The larger
of the two clouds, however, appears not to have escaped the
dear sight of the Arabians. It was very probably the White
Ox '^ el iBakar^' of their southern sky ; the *^ white patch/^ of
which the astronomer Abdurrahman Sofi says that it cannot
be seen in Bagdad, or in the North of Arabia, but is seen
in the Tehama, and in the paralld of the Straits of Bab-eU
Mandeb. Under the Lagidse and subsequenfly, Grieeks and
Biomans had passed over those regions without noticing, or
at least without mentioning in any writing which has come
down to us, this luminous doud, which yet/ in the latitude
of between 11^ and 12^ N., rose in the time of Ptolemy 3^
d)ove the horizon, and in that of Abdurrahmaftn (1000 a.d.),
more than 4P, (^) The meridian altitude of the middle
of the Nubecula Major may be noir about &^ at Aden. It
usaaUy hxpgesa that marineacs firsi distmctl]^ recognise the
MagfJlanic douds in laseh . more southerly latitudes, viz.

£00 XF0CH8 IN THK HinOBT 07 TBS OOllXBKFIiATION Of

near the equator, or even south of it; but the reason of tbii
is to be ascribed to atmospheric differeucesj and to the
presence of vapours near the horizon reflecting white M^
In the interior of southern Arabia^ the azure of the ce-
lestial vault, and the great dryness of the atmosphere, mad
have favoured the recognition of the Magellanie cloudi*
The probabilitj that such was the case is shewn by exam*
pies of the visibility of comets^ tails in dear daylight between
the tropics, and even in more southern latitudes*

The arrangement of the stars near the southern pole into
new constellations belongs to the 1 7th century. What iU
Butch navigators, Petrus Theodoii of Embdeu, and Ifs^
deric Houtman, who (1596 — 1500) was a prisoner to tin
Idng of Bantam and Atschin^ in Java and Sumatra, had ol^
served with imperfect instruments, was kid down in tk
celestial charts of Hondius Bleaw ( Jansonius Caesius) and
3ayer«

The more unequal distribution of the masses of light
gives to that zone of the southern heavens, between the pa*
rallels of 50^ and 80^, which is so rich in crowded nebnls
and clusters of stars, a peculiar, and one might almost says
picturesque character; a charm arising £rom the groupii^
of the stars of the first and second magnitude, and firom ths
intervention of regions which, to the naked eye, appear dark
and desert. These singular contrasts, — the Milky Waj,
which at several parts of its course shews a greatly increase!
brilliancy,— the insulated, revolving^ rounded MageUaiue
douds, — and the '' coal ■bags/' of which the largest is so
near toa fine Gonstellation,-^increase the variety of this na*
tural picture, and rivet the attention of susceptible spee*
tators to particukr rc^ons in the southern celestial heaoh

tm UHtTEfiSB.— OCEANIC DISCOTEBIlBfl. 291

pbere. Beligions associations liaye given to one of these

i^ons^ — ^that' of the Southern Gross^ — a peculiar interest

to Christian navigators^ travelleis^ and misaionaries^ in the

laropical and southern seas^ and in both the Indies. The four

principal stars of which the Gross is composed were regarded

m the Ahnagest^ and in the age of Hadrian and Antoninus

KuB, as part of the constelktion of the Gentaur. (**^) The

form of the Southern Gross is so striking^ and so remarkablj

individualised and detached^ — as is the case of the Greater

end Lesser Beax, the Scorpion^ Gassiopea^ the Eagle, and the

Polphin^ — ^ihat it is almost surprising that those four stam

skould not have been earlier separated £rom the large ancient

eonstellation of the Gentaur ; it is, indeed^ the more surpris*

iosg, because the Persian Kazwini and other Mahometan

astronomers were at pains to make out crosses from stars in

tibe Dolphin and Dragon. Whether the courtly flattery of

tiie Alexandrian learned men, who transformed Ganopu^

mto a '^ Ptol^i^bn/' also applied the stars of our present

Southern Gross to the glorification of Augustus, by forming

them into a ''Cflesari&thronon'^ (^®) which was never visiUe

hi Italy, mnains somewhat uncertain. In the time of

Oaudius FtolemsBus, the fine star at the foot of the Southern

Gross had stiU an altitude of 6^ 10' at its meridian passage

at Alexandria; whilst, at the present day, it culi|jinate9

jseveral degrees below the horizon of that place* At thi$

time (1847)> in order to see d Grucis at an altitude of

6^ 10', and taking refraction into account, we must be 10*

to the eouth of Alexandria, or in 21® 43' of N. lat. Tht

Obristian anchorites in the Thebais may still have sren the

pgoaa at an altitude of 10® in the fourth century, J doubt^

£92 EPOCHS IN THS HlffTOST OF THX OONTSMJ^h^kTlOV OT

hovever^ whether it received its name from them; forDaat(^
ia the celebrated passage of the PargatQrio—-

** lo mi vmlii a man dettn» e p<Mi moite
All' aUvo poby e vidi quattro stelle
Non viflte mai fiior ck* alia pzima gente :"

and Amerigo Yespuoci,— who^ at the aspect of the sontbegi
firmament in his third voyage^ first recalled tbese lines^ and
enren boasted that ''he now beheld in his own person tk
f onr stars never before seen save by the first human, pair/'-rr.
were still unacquainted with the denominatton of '' Southea
Cross/' Yespucci says simply^ that the four stars form a
riiombffldal figure (una mandorla) ; and this remaik belongs
to tilie year 1601. As sea voyages round the Gaps of
Qo€4 Hope and in the Pacific Ocean, by the routes whkiL
Gama and Magellan had opened, multiplied, and as Ghristsan
missionaries pressed forward into the newly discovered tro-
pical lands of Am^ca, the &me of this, constellatian in^
creased moce and more* I find it first mi»itioiLed as a
'' wondrous cross (croce maravigHosa), more glorious tfaaa
all the consteUations of the entire heavens/' by the Hoim-
tine Andrea Corsali (1517), and afterwards, in 1520, bj
Piga&tta. The Elorentine extols Dante's ''prophetie
spirit," — as if the great poet had not possessed as much eru-
dition as creative genius, — as if he had not seen Arahiaa
celestial globes, and held communication with many oriental
traveUers from Pisa {^^) . That in the Spanish settlements in
tropical America, the first settlers were accustomed to in&i
the hour of the night £rom the inclined or perpendicalar
position of the Southern Cross, as is still done, was already
remarked by Ajoosta in his ^' Bistoiia natmad y moral de bs
Indias." (4W)

TEE vmrmsB. — <x:»Amo msoovebies. 299

By the precession of the equinoxes the aspect of thl^
staxry heavens from every point of the earth's sar&oe is
constantly changing. The earlier inhahitantB of oar high
northern latitudes might see magrufieent aontiiem oonateBa,
tions rise to their view^ which^ now long imaeen^ will not
reappear for thousands of years. In the time of Oolumbusv
Ganopns was already folly 1^ 20' below the hcoizon at To-t
ledo (kt. 39^ 54') ; it is now about the same qpiantity above;
the horijson at Cadiz. For Berlin land the northem lati^.
todes the stars of the Southern Cioss^ as well as « and jS Gen*
taori^ are receding more and more; whilst the MagdObnic.
clouds slowly approach our latitudes, Canopus has had it8>
greatest northerly approximation during the thousand year»,
which have closed^ and is now moving (though^ on aecount,
of its proximity to the south pole oi the ediptio^ with $(&•>
treme slowness) progressively to the south. The Southemt
Cross began to be invisible in 5^^° north latitude^ S900.
yea;rs b^ore the Christian era. According to GaUe it might,
previously have ireached> . in that latitude^ an altitude of:
ncMOie than 10^; and when it vanishod from the hoirizon of:
the countries adjoining thp Baltic^ the great Pyramid o£
Cheops had already been standing in Egypt for five centn<%
lies. The pastoral, nation of the Hyksos made.thdr inva-;
aion 700 years later. Former times seem to draw sensibly-
nearer to ns, when we connect their measurement with md->.
morable occurrences.

The extension of a knowledge ^ of the celestial spaoes>rr^
knowledge^ however, limited to their outward aspec^,**^wa%
aqcompenied by advances in nautici^ aslaronomy ; that is to
say, in the improvement of . all Hxe methpds of determining
a ship^s place, or its geographical latitude and lougitijL^,

f 94 VPOCBS IN TSB HI8T0BT OF THB CONTEaCPLATION Of

All that in tbe cotine of time has contributed to &yoQr
these advances in the art of navigation; — ^the compass^ aad
ihe mx«e conect knovledge of the magnetic dedinatiaiv-*
the measniement of a ship's way by the more exact appanw
tus of the logi — the nse of chronometers and of Innar clisr
tances, — ^the bdter constmction of vesseLi, — the sabstitih
tton of another propelling force for the force of the wind,—
«nd in all respects, the skilful application of astronomy to a
dip's reckoning, — mus^ be regarded as powerful means of
throwing open all parts of the earth's snr&ce, of acceleratisg
the animating intercoorse of nations with each other, and
ixf advancing the investigation of cosmical relations. Taking
this as onr point of view, we wonld here recal the &ct iM
$s early as the middle of the 13th century ** nautical instra-
jnents were in nse for determining time by the altitudes d
jitars" in the vessek of the Catalans and of. the Islaiid cf
Majorca; and that the astrolabe described by Saymond
LuUy, in his Arte de Navegar, is almost two centuries older
tiian that of Martin Behaim. The importance of astroDO-
mical methods was so vividly recognised in Portugal, HxA
nbout the year 1484 Behaim was named president of t
Junta de Mathematicos, ''who were to c(»npnte tables of
the sun's decUnation," and, as Barros says, (^^) to teadi
pilots the ^'maneira de navegar per altura do sol/' Tb
navigation ^'by the meridian altitudes \t the sun" wai
already at that period clearly distinguished £rom the naviga-
tion by determinations of lougitude, or ''por la altura dd
ittrte-oeste." (*»»)

^ The desirability of fixing the locality of the Papal line d
Aemarcation, for the sake of settling the bonndary be-
tween the claims of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns i&

THE UNIVEESB. — OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 29!^^

the newly discovered Brazils and in the South Indian
Islaads^ augmented the anxiety for the discovery of practi*
cal methods for finding the longitude. It was felt how
rarely the ancient imperfect Hipparchian method by lunar
eclipses could be applied^ and the use of lunar distances was
already recommended, in 1514i, by the Nuremberg astrono-:
mer Johann Werner, and soon afterwards by Orontius
FmsBus and Gemma Erisius. Unfortunately this method
long continued impracticable, until, after many vain attempts
with the instruments of Peter Apianus (Bienewitz) and
Alonso de Santa Cruz, the mirror sextant was invented ill
1700 by Newton, and brought into use among mariners by
Hadley in 1731.

The influence of the Arabian astronomers was also opera^-
tive, in and through Spain, on the progress of nautical
astronomy. Many modes were, indeed, tried for determining
the longitude, which did not succeed ; but the failure was les9
often attributed, at the time, to the imperfection of the
observation, than to errors of the press in the astronomical
ephemerides of B^giomontanus. The Portuguese even sus-
pected the results of the astronomical data of the Spaniards,
whose tables were supposed to have been falsified from poli-^
tical motives. {^^^) The suddenly awakened sense of the
want of those means wliich nautical astronomy, theoretically
«t least, promised, shews itself in a particularly vivid man*
ner in the narratives of Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, Piga-
fetta, and Andres de San Martin the celebrated pilot of
Magellan's expedition, who was in possession of Buy Palero's
method of finding the longitude. Oppositions of planets,
occultations of stars, diiferences of altitude between ihfi
Moon and Jupiter, and changes of the Moon's declination^

M6 XPOOftS IN THE mSnOBT OF THE COlYTEimATION OV

Were all tried with more or less success. We have observa-
tions of oonjimction by Columbus^ in the night of the 13th
of Jmaaij, 1493, from Haiti. The necessity of giving to
inich great expedition a well-instracted astronomer, in addi-
tion to the naval officers, was so generally felt, that Queen
Isabella wrote to Colnmbns on the 5th of September, 1498,
that ''although he had shewn in his enterprises that he
knew more than any other m(»rtal man (que ningano de los
Hacidos), yet she advised him to take with him Fray Antonio
de Marchena, as a learned and skilful man in the know-
ledge of the stars/' Columbus.says, in the description of
his fourth voyage, ''there is but one infaUible method of
keeping a ship's reckoning, namely, the astronomical one.
Those who understand it may be content. What it yields
is like a ' vision profetica/ (*^) Our ignorant pilots, when
they have lost sight of the coast for many days, know not
where they are ; they would not be able to find agam the
lands which I have discovered. To navigate requires * com-
pas y arte,' the compass, and the knowledge Or art of Ihc
astronomer."

I have given these characterii^c details, because thej
»ring more sensibly before us the manner in which nautical
astronomy, the powerful instrument of rendering navigation
deeure and certain and thereby faeihtating access to all
regions of the globe, received its first devebpment in the
epoch of which we are treating ; and how, in the general
movement of men's minds, there was an early reeognitioB
i>i the possibility of methods, which had to await for their
extensive practical application the improvement of time-
keepers and of instruments for measuring angles, as well as
correct solar and lunar tables. If. the character of an age

J

THE irNIYZBSS.-— OOBAKIC BISOOTIBIBS. S9T

be '' the manifestation of the hmnau toiiid in a definitt
epoch of time/' the age of Columbus and of the great nau-
tical discoYeries^ whilst augmenting in an Unexpected man*
ner the objects of knowledge and oontetni^ation^ also opened
to ^cceeding centuries a new and higher range of attain-
ment. It is the peculiarity of great ^coveries at once to
extend the Md of our conquests^ and our prospect into new
regions which yet remain to be conquered. Weak spirits in
bverj age believe complacently that mankind have reached
the highest point of their intellectnal progress; forgetful
that through the intimate mutual relation of all natural
phaenomenay in proportion as we advance^ the field to be
travelled over obtaisas a wider extension^ — ^that ii.id bounded
by an horizon which recedes continually before the march
of the explorer.

Where^ in the history of nations^ can we point to an
epoch similar to that in which events so fruitful in conse-
quences^ as the discovery and first colomsation of America,
the navigation to India by the Gape of Good Hope, and
Magellan's first dtrcunmavigation of the globe. Coincided
with the highest and most flourishing period of art, with
the attainment of intellectual and religious liberty, and with
the sudden enlargement of the knowledge of the heavens
and of the earth? Such an epoch owes but a v^ ffluall
portion of its grandeur to the distance from which we re-
gard it, or to the circumstance that it comes before us only
in historical remembrance, unobscured by the disturbing
actuality of the present. But here too, as in all terrestrial
things, the period .of greatest brilliancy is closely associated
with events which call forth emotions of the deepest sorrow.
The progress of cosmical knowledge was purchased by all

298 EPOCHS nr the hisioet oe the oovraxpuaios oi

Che violence and all the horrors which conquerors, the s(k
called extenders of civilisation, spread over the earth. Yet
it would be an indiscareet and rash boldness which, in the
interrupted history of the development of humanity, should
venture to decide dogmaticallj on the balance of good or
iU. It is not for men to pronounce judgment on events
which, slowly prepared in the womb of time, belong but
partially to the age in which we place th^n.

The first discovery of the middle and southern parts of
the United States of America by the Scandinavians almost
coincides in point of time with the appearance and myste-
rious arrival of Manco Capac in the highlands of Peru; it
preceded by almost 200 years the arrival of the Aztecs in
the valley of Mexico. The foundation of the principal ciiji
Tenochtitlan, dates fully S2S years later. If these colooiza'
tions by Northmen had been more permanent in their
results, — ^if they had been fostered and protected by a power-
ful and pohtically united mother country, — ^the advancing
Germanic race would have stOl found many wandering
tribes of hunters, (***) where the Spanish conquerors found
settled agriculturists.

The period of the conquista, the end of the I5th and
oeginning of the 16th centuries, is marked by a wonderful
coincidence of great events in the political and moral life of
the nations of Europe. In the same month in which
Heman Cortes, after the battle of Otumba, advanced to be-
siege Mexico, Martin Luther burnt the papal bull at Wit-
tenberg, and laid the foundation of the Eeformation, which
promised to the mind of man freedom and progress in almost
untried paths. (**^) Somewhat earlier, those long buned
glorious monuments of ancient Grecian art, the Laocooxit

t)ie Torso^ thjB Belvedere Apollo^ and the Medicean Yenut
]^ beeu disclosed. Michael AitgelOj Leonardo da Yin<^
l\tiaa, and Baphael flourished in Italj^ and Holbein ^and
Albert Dncer in our German countiy. In the year in which
Columbus died^ fourteen years after the discoveiy ^f th«
new continent^ the orden of the unirerse was discovered^
though not publicly announced, by Copernicus.

The consideration of the importance of the discovery of
America, and of the first European settlements therein,
touches on other fields of thought besides those to which these
pages are especially devoted ; it would include all ihose intel-
lectual and moral influences, which the sudden enlargement
of the entire mass of ideas exercised on the improvement of
the social state. We recal only by a passing allusion, how,
since that great era, a new activity of thought and feeling,
courageous wishes, and hopes hard to relinquish, have gra-
dually pervaded all classes of civil society ; — ^how the scanti-
ness of the population of one hemisphere of the globe,
especially on the coasts opposite to Europe, favoured the
settlement of colonies, which by their extent and position have
been transformed into independent states, unrestricted in
the choice of free forms of government, — and how, lastly, the
religious Eeformation, the precursor of great political revo-
lutions, passed through the different phases of its develop-
ment in a region which became the refuge of all religious
opinions, and of the most different views in Divine things.
The boldness of the Genoese navigator is the first linV in
the immeasurable chain of these fate-fraught events; and it
was accident, and not fraud or strife, (**^) which deprived
the continent of America of his name. The new worlds

VOL. II. X

SOO mSIOBT OV THB OOHTEMPLATIOK OV TRB UHTiVAfiSE,

brought during the last lialf centoiy contmuallj nearar to
Eoiope hj commercial interconise, and hj the improvement
of navigation, has exercised an important influence on tb
politfcal institutions, (^ and on the ideas and t^ndendes
of those nations who dwell on the eastern shore of the oOf
ilantlj nanowing vallej of the Atlantic Oceaiu

801

XPOCflS IN THE HISTORY 01? THE CONTEMPLATION OF THE
XJNIVEltSE. — ^BISCOYEBIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES.

YII.

Great Discoveries in Space by the application of the Telescope. —
The great Epoch of Astronomy and Mathematics from Galileo
and Kepler, to Newton and Leibnitz. — ^Laws of the Planetary
Motions, and general Theory of Grayitation.

In attempting to recount the most distinctly marked pe-
riods and gradations of the development of cosmical con-
templation^ we have in the last section endeavoured to
depict the epochs in which one hemisphere of the globe first
became known to the cultivated nations inhabiting the
other. The epoch of the most extensive discoveries upon
the surface of our planet was immediately succeeded by
man's first taking possession of a considerable part of the
celestial spaces by the telescope. The application of a
newly Wd organ, of an insLient of spLpenetrating
power^ called forth a new world of ideas. Now began a
brilliant age of astronomy and mathematics; and in the
latter the long series of profound investigators^ leading to
the ''all-transforming'^ Leonard Euler^ the year of whose
birth (1707) is so near the year of Jacob Bemouilli's death.
A few names may suffice to recal the giant strides with
which the human mind advanced in the 17th century^ less
from any outward incitements than from its own indepen-
dent energies, and especially in the development of mathe-

302 EPOCHS IN THE HI8T0KT OF THE CONTEMPLATION Of

matical thought. The laws that regulate the fall of bodies^
and the planetary motions^ were recognised ; the pressure of
the atmosphere^ the propagation of hght^and its re&action and
polarisatiouj were investigated. Mathematico-physical sdieiice
was created^ and established on firm foundations. The in-
vention of the infinitesimal calculus marks the close of the
century; and^ reinforced by its aid^ the human intellect has
been enabled^ in the succeeding hundred and fifty years, to
attempt successfully the solution of problems presented by
the perturbations of the heavenly bodies, by the polarisation
and interference of the waves of light, by radiant heat, by
the electro-magnetic re-entering currents, by vibrating chords

♦

and surfaces, by the capillary attraction of tubes of small
diameter, and by so many other natural phsenomena.

In this world of thought the work proceeds uninter-
ruptedly, and its different portions lend to each other mu-
tual support. No earlier fruitful germ is stifled. We see
increase^ simultaneously, the abundance of materials, the
strict accuracy of methods, and the perfection of instruments.
J propose to limit myself principally to the consideration of
the 17 th century, the age of Kepler, Galileo, and Bacon, of
Tycho Brahe, Descartes, and Huygens, of Permat, Newton,
and Leibnitz. What they have done is so generally known,
that slight indications will suffice to point out through what
part of their achievements they have more especially contri-
buted to the enlargement of cosmical views.

We have abeady shewn (*59) how, by the discovery of
telescopic vision, there "was lent to the eye, — ^the organ of
the sensuous contemplation of the visible universe, — a power
of which we are yet far from having reached the Smit, but
of which the first feeble commencement (magnifying hardly

THB UNIVEBSli. — ^DtSOOYEEIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 803

as mucli as 32 times in linear dimension) j (^^) sufficed to
penetrate into cosmical depths before unknown. The exact
knowledge of many heaTenly bodies belonging to ooi solar
system^ the nnchanging laws according to which they re-
volve in their orbits^ and the perfected insight into the true
structure of the universe^ are the characteristics of the
epoch which we here attempt to describe. The results
which this age produced have defined the leading outlines of
the picture of nature or sketch of the Cosmos^ and have added
an intelligent recognition of the contents of the celestial
spaces^ — at least in the well-understood arrangement of one
planetary group^ — to the earlier explored contents of terres-
trial space* Seeking to fix attention on general views^ I
here name only the most important objects of the astronO-
nucal labours of the 17 th century ; and would point to their
infiuence in inciting at once to great and unexpected mathe-
matical discoveries^ and to a more comprehensive and
grander contemplation of the material universe.

I have already remarked^ that the age of Columbus^ Gama,
snd MagellaQ, the age of nautical discoveries^ coiacided with
other great and deeply influential events^ with the awaken-
ing of religious Hberiy of thought, with the development of
^ artj and with the promulgation of the Copemican system of
tiie universe. Nicholas Copernicus (in two still existing
letters he calls himself Eopemik) had already attained his
^Ist year^ and had observed with the astronomer Albert
Brudzewski^ at Cracow^ when Columbus discovered America.
Hardly a year after the death of the great discoverer^ Cop^-
lucus having returned to Cracow firom^a six years^ residence
at Padua^ Bologna^ and Bomci we find him occupied with an
entire revolution in the astronomical view of the universe*

804 E?O0HS IK THE HISTOBT OF THE OONTEHFLATION Of

By the faTour of his unde^ Lucas Waissebode von Allen^ (^')
Bishop of Ermland^ he was named^ in 1510^ Canon at
Frauenburg; where he was engaged for thirty-three years in
the completion of his work ^'De Bevolationibns Orbiam
GoBlestium/' The first printed copy was brought to him
when in immediate {^reparation for deaths and when Hi
strength of body and mind were fiiiling: he saw it aod
touched it; but temporal things were no farther heeded,
and he died^ not^ as Gassendi says^ a few bours^ (^^) but
some days afterwards^ on the E4th of May^ 1543. Two
years previously^ an important part of his doctrine had been
made known in prints by a letter from one of his most
zealous pupils and adherents^ Joachim Khseticus^ to JohanE
Schoner^ Professor at Nuremberg. Yet it was not the pro-
mulgation of the Cop^oican theory^ the renewed doctrind
of the solar orb forming the centre of our system^ whi<^
led> somewhat more than half a century after its first ap-
pearance, to the brilliant discoveries in space which mark
the begimiing of the 17th century :— these discoveries were
the result of an invention accidentally made, — that of the
Telescope. Through them the doctrine of Copernicus was
perfected and enlarged. His fundamental views, confirmed
and extended by the results of physical astronomy (by ihd
newly discovered system of the sateUites of Jupiter, and
by the phases of Yenus), — ^pointed out to theoretical
astronomy the paths which must conduct to the sure at-
tainment of her aims^ and incited to the solution of pnK
blems which required that the analytical calculus should be
tarried to still higher degrees of perfection. As Georg^^
Peuorbaeh and Eegiomontanus (Johann Muller, of ^&i%s^
b^^ in Franconk), exerted a beneficial iofluenoe onGopo*^

THB UNIVERSE.— -DISCOVEBIXS IK THE CEUSffTUL SPACES* SOS

mcQS and liis scholars^ SihB^cus^ Beinhold^ and Mdstiin^ so
also did these (thoneh divided from them by a lomrer inter-
«l of time) Lrt a sumkr Muence cm theS«« of
Eej^er^ Galileo^ and Newton. This is the connecting link
which^ in the enchaimnent of ideas^ unites the 16th and
17th centuries^ and requires that^ in describing tiie ea*
hrgei astronomical views of the later of these two periods^
we should allude to the incitements which descended to it
fiom the former*

An erroneous^ and uuhappilj still recently prevailing
bpink)n^ (^^') regards Copernicus as havings through
timidily and fear of priestly persecution^ represented the
earth's planetary movement, and the sun's position in the
centre of the whole , planetary system^ as a mere ''hypo*
thesis/' whidh fulfilled the astronomical object of subjecting
the orbits of the heavenly bodies to convenient calculation^
''but which need not be regarded as true, or even as
probable/' These singular words (^ are indeed found
in the anonymous preface placed at the commencement
of Copemicus's work^ and entitled ''De Hypothesibus
kujus opens;" but they do not belong to Copernicus^
snd are in direct contradiction to his dedication to the
Pope, Paul nL The author of this preliminary notice
was, as Gassendi says most distincUy in his life of Copemi-*
eos^ a mathematician nanwd Andreas Osiander, then living
at Noremberg, who, oofijomtly with Schoner, superintended'
tlie prmting of the book ''De Bevdutionibus/' and whoy
although he does not make express mention of any religious
(Ksruples, would appear to have thought it advisable to term*
Ae new views an hypothesis, and not, like- Copernicus, a
demonstrated trutlu The founder of our present systtm ol'

h

806 EPOCHS IK THB HSSIOKT OP THK OOVTBMPLATIOK OV

tbe uniyene (the most important parts of that qrstem^ die
grandest traits in the picture of the muTerse^ nnqnestionaUy
belong to him) was no less distinguished by the conrage
fknd confidence with which he. prbpoonded it^ than by liii
knowledge. He was in a high degree deserving of the &ie
eulogiom of Kepler^ who^ speaking of him in the introdoc*
0on to the Badolphine Tables^ sap, ^'vir fbit maximo in*
genioj et quod in hoc exerdtio (in condiating prejndicef)
magni momt^nti est^ animo liher" Gopemicos^ in his de<
dication to the Fope^ does not hesitate to ienn. the genenllj
received opinion of the inunobility and central position d
the earth an '^ absurd aitaroama,^' and to expose the stupidily
of those who adhere to so erroneous a belief. '^If/' said
he^ '' any empty babbler (}MT€Mi><oyoi)y ignorant of math^
matical knowledge, should yet rashly pronounce senteaoe
upon his work; by wresting for thait purpose some passagb
from Holy Sgriptuze (poq^ ahqu^n locam. scriptiHSB nuJe
ad sttum propositum detortam), he should despise so pie*
sumptuous an assault. It was, indeed,. gimeraQy knoirai
that the celebrated Lactantius {yAio could not, it is true, be
reck(med am^ng matbemaidcians), had spoken very child*
ishly (pueriliter) of the form of the earth, deriding thosi
who hold it to ba spherical. On mathematical subjects one
must write for mfithematidans only. In order to shewths^
deeply penetrated with the truth of his results, ho had no
qause to fear any condemnation, he addressed himself, frorB
ar remote comer of the world, to the supreme visible head of
the Church, that he might protect him firom the tooth of
^lander; adding, that the Church would, moreover, be
f^yantaged by his investigations on the length txf the year
a^d tbe movements of tha moon/' In regard to this U

THS TJNXVXBS».*^B(BCOTEBISS IK THE CELBSTIAL SPACES. 307

lemark it may be noticed^ that astrology^ and ataendm^nts
in the Calendar, were long chiefly efficacious in obtaining for
astronomy the protection of secular or ecclesiastical power j
as chemistry and botany were long r^arded solely as suW
i^ement to medicinal knowledge,

. The free and powerful language employed by Copernicus,
tiie evident outpouring of deep internal conviction, suffi*-
deiitly refutes the assertion, that the system. which bears his
izmnortal name was proposed as an hypothesis convenient
tp calculating astronomers, but which might very well be
without foundation* ''By no other arrangement,'^ he ex-
dfiims, with inspired enthusiasm, ^'have I been able to dis^
ODver 80 admirable a symmetry of the universe, so harmc
ixious a combination of orbits, than by placing the light of
the world (lucemam mundi), the sun, as on a kingly throne,
in the midst of the beautiful temple of nature, guiding
&om thence the entire family of drcum-revolving planets^
(circiimagentem gubemaouB astrorum famiham) /' (^6^) Even
the idea of universal gravitation or attraction (appetentia
quffidam naturalis partibusr indita) towards the centre of the
world (centrum mundi), the sun, inferred from the force of
gravity in spherical bodies, appears to have floated bef(»6
the mind of this great man, as is shewn, by a remarkable
passage (^^^) in tiie 9th chapter of the Ist book of th^
" Bevolutions/'

< In passing in review the different stages of the develop*
ment of cbsmical contemplations, wd . discover from the
earliest times more or less obscure anticipations of the
attraction of masses, and of centrifugal forces. Jacobi, in his
investigations on the mathematical knowledge of the Greeks,
(which are imfortunately still in manuscript), dwells with

SOS fiPOCHB IN THS HISTOBT 09 THX OOITCElCnATIOK Of

justice on ''the deep consideration of Natme hj Anazagonv
from whom we hear^ not without astonishment^ that ihfr
moon (^7) if its force of rotation ceased would f aU to the earth
asastouedischa^edfromasling/' I have already^ in my fiiit
volume^ when treating of the fall of aerolites^ (^ noticed
•koilar expressions of the Cilazomenian, and of Diogenes of
ApoUoniaky respecting the " cessation or interruption of the
force of rotation/' Of ike attracting force which the cenize
of the earth exerts on all heavy masses r^noved from Up
Plato had a clearer idea thim Aristotle ; who was, indeed,
like Hipparchus, acquainted with the acceleration of bodies
in fiBdlingy but who did not correctly apprehend its cause.
Li PlatOy and according to T)emocritns, attraction is
limited to bodies which have affinity with each other; or in
other words, to the tending together of homogeneous de-
memtaiy substances. (^) But at a later period, probably in
the 6ih century, the Alexandrian John Iliilopcmus, a pupil of
Ammonius Ilermese, ascribes the movements of cosmicid bo-
dies to a primitive impulse, and c(»nbines with this idea that
of the fall of bodies, or the t^dency of all substances, heaivj
or light, to come to the ground. (^7®) But tiiie idea whkh
Copernicus divined, and which Kepler enunciated mora
dearly in his fine work '^ de Stella Martis,'' ev^ s^PF^J^ig
it (^^^) to the ebb and flood of the Ocean, we find inTestoi
with new life, and rendered more fruitful (1666 and 1674}
by the si^aciiy of the ingenious Bobert Hooke. The
Newtonian theory of gravitation came next, and presented
the grand means of transforming the whole of physical
astronomy into a system of celestial mechanics. (^7^)

Copernicus, as we perceive not only from Ida dedication
to the Pope, but also from several passages in the book

i

IHB tJNITEBSB. — DISCOVJJJIIIBS IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 809

HsBfM, was tolerably well accquainted with the representationsi
which the ancients formed to themselves of the structure of
the Universe. In the period before Hipparchus, he however
only names Hioetas of Syracuse^ (whom he always calls
Nicetas)^ Fhilolaus the Pythagorean^ the Tims^us of Plato^
I!cphantus^ HeracUdes of Fontus^ and the great geometer
Apollonius of Perga. Of the two mathematicians who
oame nearest to his system^ Aristarchus c^ Samos^ and
Seleucus the Babylonian^ {^^^) he only names the first
without farther notice^ and does not mention the second at
an. It has often been said that Ck)pemicus was not
accquainted with the opinion of Aristarchus of Samos^
relative to the central position of the Sun and the planetary
character of the Earthy because the '' Arenarius/' and all
the works of Archimedes^ were only published a year after
his deaths a fall century after the invention of the art of
prmting; but in saying this^ it is forgotten that^ in the
dedication to Pope Paul m.^ Copernicus quotes a long
passage on Philolaus^ Ecphaiitos^ and HeracUdes of Pontus,
£pom Plutarch's work ''on the opinions of Philosophers''
(iii. 13)^ and that he might have read in the same work
(ii. 24)j that Aristarchtis of Samos regarded the Sun as one
of the fixed stars* Among all the opinions of the Ancients^
tlie greatest influence on the direction and gradual develop-
„j^mi of the views of Copermcus, would appear^ from Gas-
aendi's statements^ to have be^i exercised by a passage in the
encydopffidic work of Martianus Mineus Capella of Madaura^
written in a semi-barbarous language^ and by the System of
the World of Apollonius of Perga. According to the system
described by Martianus Mineus^ which has been confidently
ascribed (^74) soioetiines to the Egyptiaosj and somethnes

%1Q EPOCHS tS THS HISTORY OF THB OONTEMnATION 09 *

to the Chaldeans^ the Earth rests immoyeablj in the centre^
ttnd the Son revolves round it as a planet^ while Mercmj
and Yenus accompanj^ and revolve romid the Sun as his
satellites. Such a view of the stractore of the Univene
might tend to prepare the way for that of the Son's central
force. There is nothing either in the Almagest^ or in the
writings of the Ancients generally^ or in the work of
Copernicus ^' de Eevolutionibus/' to justify Gassendi's
decided assertion as to the perfect similarity of the System
of Tycho Brahe with that of ApoUonius of Perga. After
BocWs complete investigation^ nothing more need be saicl
respecting the confusion of the System of Copernicus with
that of the iy;hagorean Philolaus^ in which the non-rotatmg
Earth (the Antichton or opposite earth is not itself a plane^
but only the opposite hemisphere of our planet,) moves^ as
well as the sun, round the ^ hearth bt the world/' the central
fire or flame of life of the entire planetary syst^n.

The scientific revolution commenced by Copermcus had
the rare good fortune (setting aside a brief retrograde
movement in Tycho Brahe's hypothesis), of proceeding
uninterruptedly forward to its object,— -the discovery of
the true structure of the universe.' The rich supply of
exact observations which were famished by Tycho Brahe
himself, the zealous opponent of Copernicus, laid the
foundation of the discovery of those unchanging laws of
the planetary movements, which prepared for Kepler im-
perishable *fame, and which, when interpreted by Newton,
and shewn by him to be theoretically necessary, were
transferred to the bright domain of thought, and became
the ^'intelligent recognition of nature/' Ik has been
mgeniously said^ (^75) though p^haps with too feeble an

THB TTNIVEBSB. — ^DISOOVBKIES IN THE CELESTUL SPACES. 3U

appreoiation of the free, great, and independent spirit
which conceived the theory of gravitation, " Kepler wrote a
book of laws, Newton the spirit of the laws/^

The figurative poetic myths of the Pythagorean and
Platonic pictures of the universe, (*^^) variable as the
imagination from which they had their birth, still found
a partial reflex in Kepler; they warmed and cheered his
often saddened spirits, but they did not divert him from
the earnest path which he steadfastly pursued, and of which
he reached the goal, (^^7) 12 years before his death, on the
memorable night of the 15th of May, 1618. Copernicus
had afforded a sufficient explanation of the apparent
Tevolution of the heaven of the fixed stars, by the diurnal
rotation of the Earth around her axis ; and by the annual
movement round the sun, had given an equaUy perfect
solution of the most striking movements of the planets
(their reteogressioi^ and stationary appearances),-and had
tiius found the true cause of what is called the '' second
inequality of the planets.'' The first inequality, the ncai-.
xmiform movement of the planets in their orbits, he left
imexplained. True to the ancient Pythagorean principle of
the inherent perfection of circular movements, Copernicus, in
his structure of the universe, needed to add to the " excen-
tric" circles having unoccupied centres, some of the epicycles
of ApoUonius of Perga. Bold as was the path struck ont^
men could not free themselves at once from aQ earlier views.

The equal distance at which the fixed stars continue from
each other, whilst the whole heavenly vault moves from East
to West, had led to the representation of a firmament^— ^
a solid crystal sphere, — ^in which Anaximenes, (who was .
perhaps not much later than Pythagoras), imagined the stars

S12 EPOCHS IK Tm HlfTOIlT OF THB CONT]SKPIiA.TIOK Of

to be fastened as if naOed. (^7^) Geminus the BJiodiaii, a
ootemporary of Cicero's^ doabted the constelkiaoiis bang
an in the same plane ; someii he thought^ were higher and
some lower. This manner of representing the heaven of Ik
fixed stars was transferred to the planets ; and thus aroae
the theory of the exoentric intercalated spheres of Endoxos^
Menaechmos, and Aristotle who invented retrograding
spheres. After a century^ the acnte mind of ApoUooios
caused tiie theory of epicycles, — ^a constmction whicb
adapted itself more easily to the representation and calcola-
tioli of the motions of the planets, — ^to supersede the solid
.q^theres. Whether, as Ideler believes, it was not until after
the establishment of the Alexandrian Museum, that philoso*
phers b^B to regard " a free movement of the planets ii
space as possible,^' — ^whether previously to that period the
intercalated transparent spheres, (27 according to Eudoxai^
55 according to Aristotle), as well as the epicycles whicli
passed from Hipparchus and Ptolemy to the middle ages^
were g^erally regarded, not as actual solid substaaces
having material thickness, but simply as ideal abstractions,-*
I refrain here from any attempt to decide historically!
greatly as I incline to the latter view.

It is more certain, that in the middle of the 1 6th centoiy,
when the theory of the 77 homocentric spheres of the learned
Polyhistor, OirolamoFracastoro, was received with applana^
and when, subsequently, the opponents of Gopemicos sought
for every means of supporting the system of Ptolemy, — ^the
representation of the exist^u^ of solid spheres, ciidcs
and epicycles, which had been particularly favoured by the
fathers of the Church, was still extremdy prevalent, lydio
Brahe expressly boasts, that by his considerations on tho

J

TOE VJXTVJSBSE, — ^DISCOYEBIEB IV THB CSLESTIAXi SPACES. 81S

,pathJ3 of comets, he first demonstratied the impossibility of
•solid spheres^ and thus shattered the whole artificial fabric*
He filled the free celestial spaces with air^ and even believed
that the "resisting medimn^'' made to yibrate by therevolv*
jng heayenlj bodies, might produce sounds. The unpoetip
"RothmaTiTi thought it incumbent upon him to refute this jq*
newal of the Pythagcnrean myth of the music of the spheres*
The greal-- disooveij of Kepler, that all the planets move
lound the son m elUpses, and that the sun is placed in one of
the foci of these ellipses^ finally fi:eed the original Copemioaa
system from the eccentric drdes/and from all epicycles. (^7^)
The planetary tabiic of the universe now appearf^ objectively^
and as it were architecturally, in its simple grandeur; but the
play and connection of indwelling, impeUing,and maintaining
forces, were first unvdled by Isaac Newton. In the history of
the gradual development of human knowledge, we have already
often remarked the appearance, within short intervals of tim^
of important though seemmgly accidental discoveries, and
of great minds clustered as it were together; and we see
this phenomenon repeated in the most striking manner in
the first ten years of the 17 th century. Tycho Brahe the
founder of modem practical astronomy, Kepl», Galileo,
and Erancis Bacon, were cotemporaries« All, except l^oho,
were cotemporaneons in their maturer years with the labours
of Descartes and Fermat. The fundamental traits of Bacon's
Instauratio Magna appeared in the English language as
.early as 1605, fifteen years before the Novum Organon*
The invention of the telescope, and the greatest discoveries
in physical astronomy, (Jupiter's satellites, the solar spots,
the phases of Yenus, and the wonderful form of Saturn),
faU. between the years 1609 and 1612. Kepler's specula-

S14 EPOCHS IN THB filSTOBt Of t«E COHTEKFLAXtOSr Of T

tions on the elliptic orbit of Mars (*w) ^ere b^n in 160|,
and gave occasion to the ''Afitronomia nova sen PKyaa
ccelestis*' completed eight years later. '^ By the study of tiie
orbit of the planet Mars/' writes Kepler, *'we iritiSt ani?c
at the knowledge of the mysteries of astronomy, or we ntUGit
remain ever ignorant of them. By resolutely continued labour
I have micceeded in subjecting the inequalities of thcJ mbtios
of Ufars to a natural law/'- The gener^dization of tiie same
thought conducted Kepler to the great truthfi and cosmdcal
obnjectures whidi he presented ten yeat^ later in bis
Harmonice* Mundi, Kbri qdnqtte. ** I bfeKeve/' be
writes, in a letter to the Banish astrobonierlion^omoiitaaus;
"-that astronomy and j^y^cs ' are so closely connected, tiiat
neither can be perfected without the other/' Vhe restdts
oif his investigations on the structure of ttie eye and the
theoiy of vision appeared in the '' Paralipomena ad Vitd-
lionem," in 1604^, and the '' Bioptrica,'' (^i) in 1611. Thus
rapid, in regard both to the piost important objects in the
pheehomena of the cdestiai spaces, and to the mbde of ap-
prehending these t>bjects through the invention of Heir
oi'gans, was the extension of knowledge in the short interval
of the first ten or twelve years of the century, whibh opened
with Galileo and Kepler, and closed with Newton aari
Lfeibnitz.

The accidental discovery of the space-penetratii^ pow€^
of the telescope was first made in Holland, probably »
early as the close of 1608. According to ther latest id-
comentary investigations, (*®^) this great invention may be
claimed by Hans Lippershey, a native of Wesd, and spcso-
tacle-maker at Middelburg, — Jacob Adriansz, also caDeT
Metius, who is said to have made burning-glasses of icc^-**

THE DmVUESE. — ^DXSCOVEiaES IN THE CSIiE^UJC^ «FACES« SIS

fmd Za^harias . Jansea. The .first .named of these .4ihiee
pMies is always called Laprej. in the import^t l^ter^rf.tiaie
Dutch ambassador JBoi^l to the phjeioiaii SoUeUi, rfte
author of the memoir " De vero tdescopii inFeatore/* (16SiS(.)
If the priority were to be determined bytbe preefae.itanes
when the ofiers were made to ihe States GeneiaJ^ , it riviOfdd
belong to .Hans lippeirshey, who ofiered to th^ fiovvm-
ment^ on the 2d of October^ 1608^ three iasbnimeiits ^^inth
which oiie^can see to a distaace.^' The dSea^ pf Metios.is
4ated the 17th of October of the same year; bot^hesays
expressly in his petition, that ^^ through maditatipu Mid in-
dustry lie ^ad constructed auch instrojaauts. fioer. two^yeais*"
Zacharias Jansen (whp^ like Lipp^:3hej> wae f^ .^foetadb-
maker at Middelburg)^ together with hisiatibier HaiiSi Jmie-
8e^^ inveuted the compound miorosc^p^ the iqrot^pieee of
whidi is a i^ncave lens^ towards' the eibd of rtbe 16& eoD-
tury (probably about 15.90), ,but discovered tl^ itelesoope
only in 161Q^ as the ambassador Boreal teatiles.* JanffiBt
and his £dends directed the telescope towards .remote ites-
testrial, but not towards celestial olgects. >I3ie i&appittr
ciable importance and magnitmda. of the itidS^ttmiae^ciiieifcS %j
the microscope in commimieatiiig a jaore pie&iinid ikwir^
ledge of all organic objects in respect to the ooiiibrBkaiiMHi
sgid movements of their pacts, and.by the.telesoo^iniite
sudden opening of z«gi<m£ of cosmical ^paoe . beforo jbssl*
kaowDj .i;equired this detailed r^erence to the history lof
their discovery.

When the news of; the recent Dutch ii»reBtion, .or df .titt
discovery of telescopic vision, reached Venice,' Gidileo^nvBS

accidentally present; he at once • divined what m&e am
voii. n. Y

816 EPOCHS m THE HTSTOKY OP THE CONTElTPLATIOlf 01 -

essential conditions of the construction^ and immediate^,
completed a telescope at Padua for his ownuse.(*83) ge di-
rected it first to the mountains of the moon, and shewed the
method of measuring their heights ; attributing, like Leo-
nardo da Yinci and Mostlin, the ashy coloured light of the
moon to the light of the sun reflected back npon her hm
the earth. He examined with smaU magnifying powers tk
group of the Pleiades, the cluster of stars in Cancer, the \
Milky Way, and the group of stars in the head of Orion
Then followed in quick succession the great discoveries of'
the four satellites of Jupiter, — ^the two '' handles'' of Sa;
turn, or his surrounding ring imperfectly seen so that h,
true character was not at first recognised, — ^the solar spot^— .
and i\e crescent form of Venus.

The satellites or moons of Jupiter, (the first of all tb
secondary planets of which the telescope disclosed the exist-
ence), were discovered, as it would appear, almost simulta-
neously, and quite independently, on the 29th of December,
1609, by Simon Marius, at Ansbach; and on the 7th of
January, 1610, by Galileo, at Padua. In the pnblicatioii
of this discovery, Galileo, by the Nuncius Sidereus (1610),
preceded the Mundus Jovialis of Simon Marius (1614). (*^)
Simon Marius wished to call Jupiter's satellites Sidea
Brandenburgica ; Galileo proposed Sidera Cosmica or Medi-
cca, of which names the last was most approved at Florence.
Th^ collective name was not, however, sufficient to meet lie
love of flattery ; and the satellites, instead of being desig- ,
nated as they are by us,' by numbiers, havmg been called hj ,
Simon Marius, lo, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, — G>r
lileo substituted for these mythological persona^^ Ab ^^

J

THE tTNlVEBSE. — ^DISCOVESIES IN THE CELESTIAL S?ACES. 817

names of the members of the family of the Mediceau ruling
house^ Catharina^ Maria^ Gosimo the elder^ and Cosimo the
younger.

The knowledge of Jupiter^s satellites and of the phases
of Yenus was most influential in confirming and extending
the Copemican system. The little world composed of the
planiet Jupiter and his satellites (Mundus Jovialis) offered
to the intellectual eye a perfect image of the great solar and
planetary system. It was recognised that the satellites of
Jiipiter obeyed the laws discovered by Kepler, and, in the
&st place, that the squares of their periods of revolution
were in the ratio of the cubes of their mean distances from
the* eentral planet. This led Kepler, in the Harmomces
Mundi, to exclaim with the confidence and courage Tn^iic^
belongs to intellectual freedom, addressing himself to those
whose voices bore sway beyond the AJps : — "Eighty years (*®®)
have elapsed, during which the Cgpernican doctrine of the
motion of the earth and tlie immobiKly of the sun has been
taught unhindered, because it was held permissible to dispute
concerning natural things, and to throw light upon the
works of God; and now, when new documents have been
discovered for the proof of this doctrine, documents which
wefe unknown to the (ecclesiastical) judges, the. promulga-
tion of the true system of the fabric of the universe is by
you prohibited P^ This prohibition or ban, — a consequence
of the ancient feud between ecclesiastical authorities aind
natural science, — ^had been already experienced by Kepler
even in Protestant Germany. (*86J

The discovery of Jupiter's satellites marks a memprable
epoch in the history of astronomy, and in the permanent
establishment of the principles upon which it is founded* (^^')

"SIS EPOCHS TN THE HISIDVT OP VBn •OOflTBimdl.TKIK at'

^e oceoltafions ot tbe satellites^ at tiwtr eninmoe into^ik
ahadcnr of Jnpiter, led io the knowledge of the vebcii^ of
light (1675), and througli this, in 1727, to the expbsufa
of tte '' sberratnm-eliipse'' of the fised stars, in whidufte
orbit of the earth, in her annual revolution roiutd tlie sm,
is, as it were, reflected on the celestial Taoit. ISteaedian*
varies of Bdmer's said Bradk/s hare justly been tamed ik
'' key-stone of the Copemican syfiUmf^ the visible dnsfr
Stration of the earth's movement of tra&sIatbB.

The importaaee df the occoltatioiiB of Jnp^ot'^ mkffiAii
for geographical detenninatiaixs <rf longitttdexm hsd w
early perceived bj Galileo (Sept. 1612). Hie pr^posBd ^
method of determining longitudes, first to the Xkmkvi
Spam (1616), and snbseqaently to the Siiflta GeoaiL^
Holland; he proposed it, indeed, as a melhail.avttikMe it
sea, (^ apparently Uttle awtire tfif '^e inBtqoenbi&idiiBd-
tiies whieh oppose its pcactioal applieatiim oiL.lheiuisdde
ocean. He wished ei&er to go hiixtself, onto send Insjiin
Yioenzio, to Bfain, wiAi a htrndnad iefescopcs viiiArbe
riiould prepare; Teqniring !far reeompense ^'una iGniiBii
8. Jago,*' and «n uintral pei^ion of 4060 crowns; «. sad
aom, he says, as ^.t &st, in Gordinai ^9&rpsiiB hoxmt, h^
faeeti kd to ^xp^st 6600 daoato -a jear.

^e discovesy of JupHier's tsateHites iwae nan mSetiif
lowed by the obsertatbn of fiaton ^ a triple irtarj-^j^
lUBGa tergemiiatts.^ A^ taaiy as Novemlisr MkQ^ fitfbi
irrote to Eeplo* that ^^Bstom consisiBi of iioee hnna^
bodies in contact with e^ch o&e^.'^ In:ttas uohsoiviiNi
ihms wasllie genn of )3ie ^iiseovery of Satmai'ecDaguiiffie-
vlrelios described, in 16i&6, tiie variatrons in >ifk&ifqibi ^
|!S«thilv Urn nncqud lopeniBg' of :4he ^^Ja^mdUi^'fidbifcflff

TaO» lXNI1^3ffi8B£r--B»0QTBEKaSB JJSk XSB .GJBIOiSTUL SPACES. 3119

jkeaa/mnsi wtixb ^fiffpeajranoe. . But. the msni .of haviBg
^esqddiiied scieuii^allj «U tbe pbeemm!^ of the ring of
^ flatamtakeai as oue^ hebajps taHujgeiifi (1635), who, accord-
-iag to thfi. fiiuitinfitful manoer oi the time^ and like Galileo^
,lN»ftealed hi» discayafjr lE am .auagram;, eonsiating in this
fOiae of 88 htiim^* It wa^ Dbminio Cassini who first saw
^kI]A:bhttk stripes in the: ciiig (1684), siad recogmsed its
ilmffoa.iiiia at least two coac^tric rings^ I have here
bnou^t tog^thie^' the iiifi^i3Xi4ioiVgaiiiied in the course of a
^fiaatuEjyrei^eoting the m^ wonderful and least anticipated
40{allithefoiiEiftQ£.aale$tial bodies with, which we are jot
«cqfiiiax4eQl ; a l(7rm which has led to ingeuious conjectures
feasting' thei oidgpial laade of f€»*ination of the planets

' Mid; SOtfeUitttLi

'ISiei.tpoJb^^ the son' were first .obserred through tde^

msi^^ hg" Jofatfi P$ibiieifis of Dast ^Eriesland^ and fay

QaUso, aitber at<Pa4ua. or. at Yenipe. In the publication

T ^: ikt dkomxy, lEabricias (Jane» 1^11). ^^ certainly a

' ymoLxa advanse of Galileo (Joist latter to the burgomaster

> iUiMapiis iWelaevi May i> 1Q12.) The.first observiations of

l!abviciii8#ai|qpeaa^ by Arago^s careful. researches, (^^) to have

^ bocfei made iit Ma^h 16tll» or, according to Sir David

Soewster, even at the^r close of the precediag.year; while

Gkdatafbm SkSmaet dee& not bimself. refer his observa^

t&»!a.to.an.eadifir femi. ihaft ^riL 1611, and probably

fiUnfltibeganitaoocnpy himself in eaisnest with the sdlas

V 'WfciA untii^tlft nuaith. of October of. ih& same year. Bet*

'I >:ipBotin|g Galfleo we hme only obscure and discordant

- 'njnfiaKinftiaaiiiL. He ivaa ^oqaainted with the solar spots in

^ ' iKpidl^lSll, Jor he shelved. theuL pofalLcly at Borne, in tho

^^ ijgattka gfi thte Candhiri • ftindiBi . o^ iheL .Qi^irmal^ in^Apifl

S20 ZPOCHS IK THX HISrOST 01 THB OQNXSHPLAIIOV OT

and May of that year, Harriot^ to whan Baron Zadi al;^
butes the discovety of the solar spots (16tii Jaa. 161A!)
did indeed see three of them on the 8di of December^ 1^10«
and marked their position in a register of obseitatioiis; kt
he was not aware that they were solar spots^ as 'Ehsarimif
on the 23d of Dec^nber^ 1690, and Tobias Msyer^ onUte
25th of September, 1756, did not recognise TJranus as t
planet when seen in their telescopes. Harriot &rst reeag*-
nised them as solar spots Dec. 1, 1611, five months after
Fabricius had published his disoovezy. Galibo lemstrkfll
thus early, that the solar spots, '^of whidL msmy are kr]gtt
than th^ Mediterraneaiij and even than AEoea and Asb/^
occupy a distinct zone in the sun's dkd^. He Boticed W
the same spots sometimes returned, and was penmaded flut
they belonged to the smi itself. The differeaiees in tluil
dimensions at the centre ci the disk, and wheoi ne«r disG^
pearing at the margin, particularly arrested hii^ attentieD;
but 1 do not find, in the remarkable second lett» to Mai«i0
Welser (Aug. 14, 1612)^ anything that oouid be intei}>i«ttii
to indicate that he had observed the inequality of the ishf
coloured border at the two sides of the black nndeusi ^hflsi
approaching the limb of the sun (Alexander Wilsom's fine
remark in 1,7X3 1) The Canon Tarde, in 1620^ «tid Mala*
pertus, in 1633, ascribed all obscnratioiis of the sun i»
small revolving cosmical bodies which intercepted his li|^
and to which the names oi Borbonia and Austriaca Sidenr
were given. (^^) !Fabxicius recognised, like Qalilfio^ tint ^
spots bdong to the sun itself; (^^^) he also saw that speCs
which he had observed disappeared and returned again; and'
these phsenomena taught him the rotation of theaun^ wluok
Kepler had conjeotuned befove the. diacovety of the sp^

>

nra iimi\!S!tta.^-*MfiocmEitiE» IN TH^ celestial spaces. 321:

i^he mosrt exact determinations of the period of rotation

(wjere made by the cffligent Scheiner (1630). Since the

, strongest light which man has yet been able to produce,.

V Dricminond's incandescent lime, appears of an inky black

f %beR projected upon the sun^s disk, we need not wonder that

Galileo, whO' doabdess first described the great solar faculae,,

.;8h0aki have considered the light of the nuclei of the solar

ifpeis to be more intense thioi that of the fuU moon, or of

tite at3aoq>here near the solar disk. {^9^) Fancies respect-

feg tbe inaiiy ^irelopes of air, doud, and light surrounding

tifte^Mack eaartifi-Hke nucleus of the ^on, may be found in

13ie wiritiiigs of Cardinal Nicolaos of Cuss, in the middle of

tti5 15th century. (*^)

* The cyds^ oi admirable discoveries which scarcely occupied
ifim years, aiid ni which the immortal name of tibe Morentilae
stipneB foremost; was completed by l^e observation of the phases
^f 'Yeims. As* early as 1610 Galileo saw the sickle or crescent-
Ssam of the planet, and, aceordiDg to a phuntice already
dUbaded to^ concealed the important discoveiy in an anagram,
whidk Kepler recals in the prefEU^e to his Dioptrica. He
says also, in a letter to Benedetto Castelli (Dec. 30, 1610),
thai/ he thinks be has recognised changes in the enlightened
disk of Mars, notwithstaaiding the small power of his tele-
so<>pe- The discovery of the moon-like crescent shape of
\(tmiB was the triumph of the Cbpemican system. The
neeeesity of the existence of these phases could certainly not
have escaped the founder of that systan; he discusses in
de^; in the tenth chapter of his first book, &e doubts
wludi the ktar adhemits of the Platonic opmions had
rsMsed against the / Ptolemaic ^tem on account of the
vWKn^s j^bsesw ^ Bui) HLJthe devel^jonent <£ hk own system

he makes no pnticolai tetoark respeetnig ib» piuwea of
Ytenus, as in ^omaa SsHtli's Optiosi he > li^ stated ti». lust

done.

These enlsirgements of cosmioai knoirMge^ (tli» darnqp-
tion of which cannot' be- kept entifdyfree from the imhqff
oontests respecting datms of priority in dissov^), MkB-JL
that belongs to physical askonom3r> exeited meeagsmnl
interest than might otherwise hare been the ea9e> fcmnrthe
invention of' the telesoope (I60d) havmg oooonvd <att&
period when popular attention had been roused fagr tlu^e
great' and surprising events in the regions of spaoe : I a]Me
tO'the 'sudden appeamnce and extinction' <tf tiuee new>sl&]8;
one in Cassiopea in 1572^ one in Cygnus in 1609, and Oiaejs
1hefik)tiofOphiuch^inl644. AH these surpassed in biigbt-

•

ness stars of the l&rst magnitude ; and th^ which Hsfifit
obsenred^ in Gygnus continued to shine in the vmdb^
heaven for twenty-one yesw, through the whde p^eiodof
QaETeo^sdiseoveries: Almost three centuries and- a hH
have siitce e£apsed> and no new star of the^iilpst or'seooud zaag*
nitudehas subsequen% appeared ^ foF'the- reifi&ikaUacos-
mical event witnessed by Sir John Herschd in the so^bsm
hemisphere in 1887, (*•*) was a* great inerease^of bumDoas
intensity' in a long known star* of the seoerad magsitade
{ti Argus), wMch had not until tlien been seen to be, rf
variable brightness. TheTOtings o£ Kepler, aodlheaeB-
sation produced at fhe preswittime^ by* the appearasos d
comets visiijle to the naked eye, enaMe us to ceAi^fdieBi'
how powerftdly ihe three new stars whicli appeared bet»»ipen
1572 and 1804*aiTested eurioarty^--hbw'much theyiiKaeaBd
the interest felf in aMaroftomical' dfecoveries, and wlwt *
stimulus they atffdrded'to imaginalave" combinatiofisc 9^^

iBg tenei^triai natuzttl evimts, suoh as ^ac&qiiakes iu couiw
tries wheve they are THrelyfelt^ tbe- outbreak of voloanoea
after' long periods of repose^ the rushing sound oi aerolitesr
itUich'travecBe our atmosphere and beeoms suddenly heated
iK'it> awidcen fk' a time a Mvely interest in problemsi which
app«r ev« mre my«teik«s to p«80i« ia gmeral tlm ta
dogmatising phikuKvphos.

lit ike foregcxng Temai^ on the iHfluence exerted by the
cBveet visible contemplation' of particular heavenly bodies, I
have named Kepler moie partfeukrly^ for the sake of re*-
deffing how, in* this great, richly gifted, and extraordinary
man, the lo^re f<^ imagin»eive oDmbinations was united with
a Tematikable tat^t for observation, a grave and severe'
i&dtiod of induetioD, a courageous and aknost 'unexampled
p«sevcr«n<je in calculation, and a depth of mathematical'
thought which, displayed in his Stereometria doliorum, exer-
cned a happy influence on Fermat, aad through him on the
indention of the infinitesimal calculus. (♦^*) The possessor
of such a' mind (*^ was prQ*>eminentiy suited, by the richness
atid mobiltty of his ideas, and even by the boldness of the
oDsmoiogical speoolations which he hazarded, to promote
iflid"animate *he movement whidi carried the 17th century
unmtermptedly forward towards the attainment of its exalted
ofiject, ifce enkrged contemplation of the universe. The
nany comets visftte to* the* naked eye from 1577 to the
a!ppearane& of'HaJIey'a comet in 1607 (eight in number),
aod'the appantimi> almost within the same pmod, of the
tfeiee new stars' alieady ^x)ken of, led to q)eculations in
^^Bieh tiiese heavenly bodies were viewed as originating from,
oi? beingfoBwed oni of,'8 cosmical vapourfllling the regions
<^spacci Heplei; like lyoito ffirahe, beHievied the new etarr*

to have been condensed from this vapour^ and redisaolvdl
into it again. (^^7) li^ his /'new and strange disoonr^
on long-haired stars/' he i^qxresented comets also (to which^
before the actual investigation of the eUipiic orbits of thit
planets, he attributed a rectilinear not a dosed or re-entenif
path), as formed jGrom the '' ceitestial air/' He even addedy
in accordance with the old fancies of spontaneous geum-
tion, that comets were formed '^like the herbs whick grow
without seed from the earth, and as fishes are prodneei
from salt water by generatio spontanea/'

More happ7 in his other cosmical anticipationa, Kqakr
adyentnsed the following prc^Kmtions :«-Thaithe fixed siatt
are all sons like ouz own, surrounded by pkasietary systems^-
that our sun is enveloped in an atmosphere whsftfa shew»
itself as a white corona in total solar eclipses; that the
situation of our sun in the g^reat ialand of the imiverss
to which it belongs is in the cmtre. of the crowded iring<if
stars which forms the Milky Way; (*^s) that the sunio-:
tates round its axis as do the planets and the fixed afaiia
(this was before the discovery of the solar spots); that
satellites, like those which Galileo had discovered revolnag.:
round Jupiter, would be discovered round Saturn (and romid.
Mars) ; and that in the much too large interval (^^) be<^
tween Mars and Jupiter, where we ate now acquainted with
seven asteroids, (and also between Yenus and Mereuy),
there moved planets, which their small size rendered invi^*
sible to the naked eye. Antidpatoij annunciations of thiS'
nature — felicitous coi^jectures, which have been for the moat
part realised by subsequent discoveries — excited genera-
interest; while none of Kepler's cotemporarie^^ not even^,
Galjl^o, paid wj, juat tribijLte of pmise to tbe< dha^e^dj

fHBmrmiU9B<*-i-4)Ii90OVXBIBS HfTHS 0BLE5TIAL SPACES. 325

tin tbree laws which, since Newton and ther promulgation
of the theoij of gravitation, have immortalised the name of
Kepler. (•<^) Cosmical speculations, even such as are not
founded on observation, but only on faint analogies, then,
as IB still often the case, arrested attention more than the
most important results of '* calculatmg astronomy.'^

Haviug thus described the important discoveries which,
ia so small a eydt ct yeats, enlarged the knowledge of the
i^oiui of space, I have still to recal the advances in physi-
cal astronomy which mailed the second half of the great
oeiitiiry of irfach we are treating. The improvement of
tdksseopes ooeanoned the discovery of the satellites of
patera. Huygens, with an object-glass polished by himself,
first discovCTcd one of them (the sixth), on the 25th of
March, 1655, forfy-five years after the discovery of Jupiter^s
satellites. From a prejudice which Huygens shared with
sdveral astronomers of the period, that the number of satel-
lites or secondary planets could not exceed that of the
laarger car primary planets, (wi) he did not seek to discover
any more of Ihe satellites of Saturn. Four of them, Sidera
Lodovicea, were discovered by Dominic Cassini : the seventh,
or out^most, which has great alternations of brightness, in
1671 ; the fifth in 1672 ; and the third and fourth in 1684,
with an object-glass of Oampani's having a focal length of
100 — 136 feet. The two innermost, or the first and second
satellites, were discovered more than a century later (1788
and 178y), by William Herschel with his colossal telescope.
The second satellite offers the remarkable phsenomenon of
performing its revobtion round the principal planet in less
f hstn one of our days. , '

Sooa after Hnygens* diacovery of a mktelKte of Saturn,

826 SPOGHS IN THE HI8ZDI.T OB TRB COSTVMXJJOSOiVi Of ;

Childrey (1658—1661) diaeovered the Zodiacal laght, ^
which, however^ the true relotioiis iik q»ee wererfiist detei^
jnined by Dominic Gassioi in ld83; Gassini regarddd it
not as a part of the solar atmoephere^ bat, l&e Sdiub^.
Laplace, and Foisson, as a detached aejsandielj revoMi]g
nebulous ring. (^^^) Next to tiie deBaonstiatbn of tib
existence of secondary planets or satellites^ and of the de-
tached and concentrically ditided. ring of Sstoni, the disco-
Y^ of the probable existence of the nebfolous ring of tl»
Zodiacal Light unquestionably constitutes one of the grand*)
est enlargements in our view of the planetary g^stem, which,
at first appeared so simjde. Lk onir own dap. the closely
intecwoven orbits of the small planets between Mars and
Jupiter, the comets of short period which remain within our
i^stem (the first of which was shewn to be sxich by Encke),
and the showers of shooting stars occurring on particnkr.
days (if we may regard these bodies as smaU cosmical
masses moving with planetary vehxaty), have enriched the
view of our sakr system witk new and. wonderfully varied
objects of contemplation.

In the first part of the period of which we are treating,
ia the age of Kepler and. Gblileo, great additions were also
made to the view of the contents of space, or of the dk-
t^bution of the material creation,, beyond the outermost
j^aneiaiy orbit, and beyond the path of any comeL In the
saiae period (1572 — 1604) in which three new stars of the
'first magnitude appeared in Gassiopea^ Gygnus, and Ophin^
ohus, David Pabricins,. Protestant minister of Ostellin East,
rriesland (the father of tib discoverer of the solar apott],.
' in 1696, und Johann Bayer, at Augsbui^,, in 1603, ii^
mukai, in the neck of Gestus a star wliieh. disaggesM^

T]^.miTKRSS.-^DISCOV]SBIES^rK THS CELESTIAL SPAX2ES. 987

.a^dn, the yaryiiig bidglitiiess of which, howevei^ as Arago
,has shewi in an important memoir on the Idstoij of Bstta^
nomical disooveiy, {^^^) was first recognised by Johannes
Phocjlides Holwarda^ professor at Franeker, in 16S8 and
1639. Other phenomena of the same class were obseiT:€4
in the latter half of the 17 th century ; stars of periodically
variable briUiancy were discovered in the head of Medus<^
in HydJT^^ and in Cygnus. In the memoir of Arago in
J.842 above referred to, it is very ingenionsly shewn^ how
ex;act,observatiotas of the change of light of Algol might lea4
directly to. the determination of the veloeity of the lightxOf
that sta:p»

The use of the telescope now stimulated astronomers to
the observation of another class of phaenomen^ some of
which ooold not escape the notice even of the unassisted eye.
ISimon Marius described the nebula in Andromeda in l&lSfp
and in. 1656 Huygens drew a sketch of the nebula in the
aword ci Onon. These two nebulae may serve as types «f
different . states of condensation, more or less advanced, of
the nebulous cosmical matter. Marius, in compadng tihe
^bula of .Andromeda with the light of a taper seen through
^ semi-traQspareut substance, indicates ve^r appropriate^
the difEejreui^ between it and the groups or clusters of stam
es^wifled by .Galileo in the Pleiades and in Cancer. As
early as the caauaemoement of the 16tlv century, Spanish
3^4 Portuguese navigators, though without the advantage
of telescopic ymot^, had observed and admired tiie two T^
gellanie luminoi^ douds which revolve rotmd the southern
poli^ a<4 of whi<^ oa^ as we have already remark^^ wm
known as the ''white patch,'' or ''white ox/' of the Pw-
4£^'afitEQiioiner Abdur^ahs^aa SoSy in the middlp of tht

328 ]BK)GHS IN THE HISTOBY OF THE CONTEMPLATION 07

10th century. Galileo^ in the Noncius Siderius^ employs the
appellations " stdlae nebulosse/' and '^ nebulosse,'' to de-
note clusters of stars^ which^ as he expresses it^ like '^ areola
Bparsim per sethera subfulgent/' As he bestowed no parti-
cular attention on the nebula of Andromeda^ which is visible
to the naked eye but has not yet shewn any stars even
under the highest magnifying powers^ he regarded all nebu-
lous appearances^ all his nebulosse^ as being Uke the Milky
Way, masses of light formed of closely crowded stars. He
did not distinguish between nebula and star, as Huygens
did in the case of the nebula of Orion. Such were the first
commencements of the great works on nebulse, which have
so honourably occupied the first astronomers of our age in
both hemispheres.

Although the 17th century owed its chief splendour, at
its commencement, to the sudden enlargenient by Gralileo
and Kepler of the knowledge of the celestial spaces, and,
at its close, to Newton and Leibnitz^s advances in pure
mathematical knowledge, yet it was not without a beneficial
influence on the greater part of the physical problems in
which we are engaged at the present day. In order not
to depart from the character of this history of the contem-
plation of the universe, I merely mention the works which
exercised a direct and essential influence on general or cosmi-
cal views of nature. In reference to Light, Heat, and Mag-
netism, we must name first Huygens, Gralileo, and Gilbert.
When Huygens was occupied with the double refraction of
light in crystals of Iceland spar, i. e. with the separation oi
the pencils of light into two parts, he also discovered, in .
1678, that kind of polarisation of %ht which bears hi^ '
name. More than a century elapsed before the discovery or

THE tnOVEESB. — ^DISCJOVEEIBS IN THB OBLBSTUL SPACES. 889.

this insulated phsenomenon (which was not published until
1690^ within five years of Huygens' death) was followed
by the great discoveries of Mains, Arago, Fresnel,^
Brewster (^®*) and Biot. Mains, in 1808, discovered po-
larisation by reflection from polished surfaces; and Arago,,
in 1811, discovered coloured polarisation. A world of^
wonders— of variously modified waves of Ught gifted with
new properties, was now opened. A ray of light which
reaches our eyes from the regions of space, from a heavenly
body many millions of miles distant, when received in Arago's
polariscope, tells as it were. of itself whether it is reflected or
refracted, whether it emanates from a solid, a fluid, or a
gaseous body, (^o*) and even announces its degree of inten-
sity. Advancing in this path, which takes us back through
Huygens to the 17th century, we are instructed respecting
the constitution of the ^solar orb and its envelopes, — the
reflected or the proper light of the tails of comets and of the
^diacal Light, — the optical properties of our atmosphere,
and the position of the four neutral points of polarisation, {^^)
which Arago, Babinet, and Brewster discovered. Thus man
makes for himself, as it were, new organs, which, when
skilfully used, open to him new views of nature.

We should next name, by the side of the polarisation of
light, the most striking of all the phsenomena of optics — ^the
phsenomenou of ''^interferences,'' faint, indications of which
were also observed in the 17th century, though without any*
understanding of. their causal conditions, by Grimaldi;, isi
1665, and by Hooke. (^®^) Our own time is indebted for the
discovery of these conditions, and the clear re^gnition of
the laws according to which rays of light, (unpolarised)^
when they proceed from one and the same source^ but with »

S30 ZPOGBS HIT TIUR HIBIOBT OV THC OOHTKMPTMTinfTf Of

different lengOi of potJi, ddstxoj each other and prodiw
darkness^ to the acute and saccessful penetration of Thomas
Young. The laws of the inteiference of polansed ligU
were discoveored in 1816^ by Arago and Presnel, Tlv
theory of undulatiaBs^ advaueed by Huygens and Hoabi*
and defended by Euler, at last found a finn basis.

But if the ktter half of the 17th century was dktiaft
guished by an important enbrgemeai of optical knoviedg^
in the attainment of an insight into the nature of .double la^
fraction, it has been invested with a far higher splendour by
Newton's experimental researches^ and by Olaizs Homer's dis-
covery (in 1675) of the measurable velocity o£ light ; a ^.
Govery which enabled Bradley, haU a century later (in 11 S&)^
to regard the varkition winch he found in .the »jip6iesii phtt
of the stars as a eonsequenoe of the movement of the^adli
in her orbit combined with the pro{^agatian of light, Newr,
ton's Optics appeared in 1704, not being published w
English for personal reasons xmtil two years after HoqWj
death; but this magnificent work may be resided as b^
longing to the 17th century, for we are assured that, eves
previou^to the years 1666 and 1667, its great author ws
in possession {^^) 6t the essential points of his optical JKs-
covmes, of his tiieory of gravitaidon, and of tfae lodiiod of
fluxions.

Li order not to break the linl^ of iJie common bond
Vhich mutes ihe genersd ^primitive phsenomcnaof matter^^
I place here, inunediately after the above brief noticed
Huygens, Grimaldi, and Newton, considerations on* teeros-
trial magnetism axtd atmospheric temperature,— so fa at
least as the fbundaiions of these studies' were estaUisfaed ii
the century whieh it is the object laf this section to

THE UNTVEKSE.— DISC30YEBXES IN mE CELESTIAL SPACES. 331'

The most ingenioTis and important work on electric and
magnetic forces, William Gilbert^s Physiologia nova de Mag-
nete, of which I liave abeady several times had occasion to
speak, {^^) was pubKshed in 1600. Gilbert, whose saga-
cious mind was so highly admired by Galileo, (*^**) antici-
pated by his conjectures much of our present knowledge.
He regarded magnetism and electricity as two emanations of
one fandamental force pervading all matter, and there-
fore treated of both at once. Such obscure anticipations^
founded oiuanalogies of the attracting power of the Heracleaa^
magnetic stone on iron, and of amber (when animated, as
Pliny says, with a soul by warmth and friction) on dry straws,
have been common iv all periods, and even to the most dif-
ferent races ; for they were shared by the followers of the
Ionic philosophy of nature, and by Chinese physicists. {^^^)
"William Gilbert regarded tlie earth itself as a magnet, and
the lines of equal declination and inclination as having their
inflections determined by distribution of mass, or by the
forih of continents and the extent of the deep intervening
oceanic basins. It ia difficult to reconcile the periodic
variation which characterises the three elementary forms of
tlie magnetic phsenqmena (the isoclinal, isogenic, and iso-
dynamic lines) with this rigid system of distribution of force
and mass, unless we imagine the attractive force of the ma-
terial particles modified by similarly periodical variations in
th6 interior of the globe.

In Gilberf s theory, as in gravitation, the quantity of
material, particles only is estimated, without regard to the
specific heterogeneity of substances. This circumstance
^ve to his work, in the period of Galileo and Kepler, a
dharacter of cosmical grandeur. By the unexpected disco-

VOL. II. 2

vay q£ ^ tiat^ihU'Vmgneiifm" hfAxagf) (X8e5}^4^ baabeea
-pstttHMjf piovad) thai aUikindft.of lofttl^c are ausoeBJdhleat.
Tn^giiffHtfffi wd; Siu»ida/»>]«test rasewohoaQiirdiwaq^etio.
sulwiaiiaM 1i»vjq> under partiaulu' Qondition»: qf '^^ui^oc
eqnabnial* diraolioii^^ mhA of sc^Ud^ fluid>i or. g^a^ous inr .
aciim owditioiw^ o£ tbe bodi«9» cpofismadi tbis. imppitaai
rowUk Qilbflrt had so ola&i an id^ of the uap^tiag, of
th«>. (ttHuijp. DQflgiwtic fprooj thttt. he already, ascnbed tlie.
imigMtio^aiBto of UDQ(b«rp in. th^ o^oaaeaion.cMcbarQti
toimiBsOi^'atc^pliiB tO'tina-G^^

Initfae.lffitih cMrtujy:^. by ik» ixMsrea^qg actmigpof. n^
g^tiwfa tOithftf high^gi latitudes^, aad. b; thia uD£i»yein«Qt, of
nuigiielie iastrumentA^ to wfaifih^, sim^ 1&Z6,, .th^ djgpk^
imii& oil iii<diiDaix>xiuiD». canstmpted bjr. Itoheit l^oiman of
IUi(di£S^ httd-;bemadde4 ^ geiieml kaowledgp,-of . the gxof
glMfiva jowtion. ol . a( part, oft tha{|nagp£itiG.€w:?€S^ri,,^ ot
th0.4)lieft <of . ]]0;> v£gn0tionr--<wa&> first, obtained. Xhe^po^OD.
ofitlbea»ag^etio,oqu«toc iot Una of no* in^linatian)^, wfaidk.
\9iili:kK0g; htikfwA' to be idantical with tba g^MS^af^uksl
ecyMttoi^. '^i9aM\ nofc exwoined. Obverv^tiinis of incdinatioa^.
wwe.i}Mwb..onljF.i&.aKiamQ£ tha principal, cities of. we$tem.
and^aopj^miSm^e r tbe>inten£% ^. the.earth^s.nuiggiustk
fove^.ipijaih. mriD&balJi mtk plaoa aoft jvith tim^^.wsfsind^
attfip^aiL to b%n>eaainr^}l]9r Grabam.in Lpndon^, in. 172^1,^
b]ytbkfNQisia3hriioina>Qf.n ina^etic.n^ but^tecjQie£ailiaa-
of Boida's endeavour on his last voyage to thjB; C^nanes ilK-
VIJJ6^j itinw I^anonwi^^ inJ7<S5^ in the eme^on. ^f
Im^esufum, &stia»omid^. in. oo^paijng^ tha ii\tensiii,ia
diA«0iU>ii£gfQna}ol:the eajEt^ r

liteBnd Hall^^j availing himself of > a, great sxmst ojC «^
iate^g^obaariaiaiMBia of de^nation,. of. verj. un^fial vs^^t^]^

THR XJNITEBSE. — ^mS0OVMI3» IKTHB^XUBSHAL 6FACB& 384h

Baffin^ .Hadson, James Hall^. and' Sehoaten)^ sketched^ in
1A83>, bis ihto^ otioui magnetio poles <»« points of. at*
traddon,. and of the p^odicd moTemfint of the magoetioM
lines of .no yariaiti0!&*. In oird^ to test* thk tfi-eoty^ and to :
rmder it m(a& perfect by; the »d of new and- more exa«t <
observatians, he wai^ permitted by- the Ei^lish Govemmenir ,
toi&yce (1688^ — 170.2) three voyages in the Atlantic Ooean^r
inraship of .which he was gzvea the oommand* On. (ma ol
these voyage h& proeeeded as far as^5i£^ soiiib'latitiiitekK
This undertaking forms aA epoeh in the hktorj'Of teHse»**
tcial '.magnetisan. A general '' Vaiiatian chavt/' or a^ dbatt
oiir'which the points at whieh the navigatori had Jcnmd^thft.
3ame ajttomtt of dedination w^« coimeoted by ciflrveddinfis^)
was its result. Never before^ I bdieire, didany Govem«i
ment.equip a^naval expedition for a& object^ iphioh, whilst ^
its attainment promised considerable advantages £or. p]»c-
tical navigation, yet so properly deserved, to be entitled^
siHentific or physico-mathematical. .

As no phsenosienon can be examined by an attentive ia«
veatigater withosi being^ considered in its rdation to othtr^^t
HaUey^ as soon as he retnnxed from his voys^s^ hazarded^
the canjeotttie that the Aurora Borealis is . a. magnetio^
phenomenon. I have remaibedy.in the^ pctoxe of.nati»fr.
contained in* the first vdtuneof this work, ..that Eaxada/sr
brilliant diseoveryof the evc^tion of light by joaigaetisBki
has raised this hypottiesEa^ aoonnced ii 1714^ to thBisaopk of*
aaexpieriiiiental certainty.. .

But if the lawa 'of 'tersestiial magnetism ace taibe-tho^
ronghly. sought out,-^that is to -say, if they aseio fae>inv«fi4.<
tigated in the. great cycle of the^ periodical. movenKsnl^ia
geograp^al space of the three classes of mtgadic^csurvet^s**^'

M4 EPOCHS in THE HISTOBT OT THE OOWTEMPLA^HOW ©T -

it is not si]fficien>t that the diurnal, regcQar, or disinrbel'
inarch of the needle should be observed at the magiieti&
stations, which, since 1828, have begun to cov«r a coneS-

J derable portion of the earth's surface, both in nortii^ra a&#

' southern latitudes ; (**') it would also be requisite to s^
four times in each century an expedition of three ships,
which should have to examine, as nearly as possible at fte
same time, the state of magnetism over all the aceessiU#
parts of the globe which are covered by the ocean. Tint
magnetic equator, or the line where the indinajtkm is 0,
must not merely be inferred from the geographical posa^^m^
ctf its nodes (or intersections with the geographical equa-
tor), but the course of the ship should be made to vaB^
contmuallv, in accordance with the observations of incliufl"
tion, so as never to quit the line forming the magnetie
equator at that time. Land expeditions should be ooni^
bined with the undertaking, in order, where masses of
land cannot be entirely traversed, to determine exactly «t
what points of the coast the magnetic lines (and espe-
daily the lines of no variation) enter. The two isohM
^'closed systems" or ovals, in eastern Asia, and in ft«
iPiacific in the meridian of the Marquesas, (si*) may, in

' their movements and gradual changes of form, be des«Vi
ing of particular attention. Sfaice the memorable antarolie
expedition of Sir James Clark Boss (1839 — ^1843), pros-

' vided Tilth excellent instruments, has thrown a great 1^
over the high latitudes of the southern hemisphere, aTi9
determined empirically the place of the magitetic soutfc
pole, and since my honoured friend Priedrich Cfauss \m
succeeded in establishing the first general theory of tot^
testrial magnetism, we need tiot abanflon 'the h*p6 till

i

»•«•

TEBJkVssnpni!Biga^^^m&cx>Y^^ in the cbtues^iul kpacis. 835

iiie many wants of science and of navigation will some
3^j be satisfied by the execution of this plan so often de*
fii)^ by me. May the year 1860 desenre to be marked
as the first normal epoch in which the materials of a ^^ mag^r
Jistio map of the world" shall be assembled ; and may per*
masent scientific institutions impose on themselves the
dcrtyof reaainding, every quarter of a c^itury, a Govern-
wimt favouxable to the prospmty and progress of naviga*
ti<m^ of the importance of an undertaking the great cos-
ijiical lvalue of whieh is attached to lQng-c(mtinued iepe«>

. The invetntion of instruments for measuring temperafcuro
(GaliWs ftermoscopea (^^5) of 1593 and 1608 were de*
pendent <)onourcently on changes of temperature and on
variations in the pressure of the external air) first gavn
nae to the idea of investigating the modifications of the
^Ifanosphere by a series of connected and successive obser*
TUtions^ We learn from the Diario of the Academia dd
Gmaento^ — ^which^ during the short continuance of its acti*
fityy exercised so happy an influence on the disposition
fe^ experiments and researches on a systematic plan, — that,
as early as 1641> observations of temperature were made
%e times a day at many stations, (^^^) with spirit ther-
miCHneters ahnilar to our own ; at lE'lorence, at the Convent
dfigli Angeli, in the plains of Lombar^^ in the mountams
lifiarTistoia, and even in the elevated plain of Innspruck.
^The Grand Duke Ferdinand 11. charged the monks of many
convents ia his states with this task. (^*^) The tempe*
latures of mineral springs were also determined, giving
occasion to many questions respecting the temperature of
Ale eartb. As sSl telluric natural phsenpmena.^ i* e all thd

8S6 EPOCHS IN THE HiarDOBY OP ItlS CX)irFfflaL«ROItf 09

tlteratioRs whic^ terrestrial matter tmsdei^ies^ ate
aected -with modificatioiis of haai, I^H ^^^ fkctmeU^
cither in repoBC or soDOving in ci2neixkSi--a3!id asctiie pbiaeni^
mena of 'tonperature operating hj expansion «e mostvflcc«»-
iibtle to vmhle perception and cogmsanee, it "foUoiRs A§i,
«si>I have dsewhere obserred^ the inrmtion anil iimpeow-
mest of thenttometricinstraments marks. animpoztantqioflb
m the progress of tiie g^teral knowledge of nature. !E»
field of application of the thermomet^^ and the .conclnsiQW
fefonded on ijb indioation?^ are commenstusate .irith dl»
domain of those forces or powers of nature \^hieh- exert* iBw
ddimion alike in the aerial oeean^ on tiie dxy kod^ in
tbe Baperimpoeed aqueoos stt^taot the sea^ and'in inoigaaie
«iib^tetce9y«S'wdI as in &e t^mioal aad Tital prooei^ses^
^«8adc.fissi»e3.

fMore ^thaaa a centUry previosas to *Scbeele's 'iBxteime

laboars^ the action of radjaat heat .'vpasraiso inresligated'iif

Ifee Mor«itine membcfsof the Acadenria del \CSmeiito,rljf

TQBiadsaMe experiments made with omeave mirrors^ :tQWMis

which, n6n-lunrinous heated bodies, and masses of ice-rf

JOOlbs. in wei^t, radiated a^^toaUy and apparent]^. (*^

Jfariotte/at'the dose of the 17t)i century, inrestigated tfe

jektioBS of radiant'keat in its paasage through glassrplatifi.

€ have 'here recalled these detached experiments, becaa^Sr

.4»iK5erihat pdiod, the docWne-of the " radiationof beat'^Jus

ttarown considerable light on the cooling .of ijie gtoana,.tiiB

'«rigin of d^r, and many general climatic modifioati<»i^ vA

tinoQgh 'Mellohl'a admirsAle sagacity, has ^ten condiieMi

to the contfasted diathemrism of rock salt and altun.

'With investigations on the vamtions of atmo^^boao
^temperatjore, coiBcid^t witih ehao^of latitude, 9tgmnmA

rd^vatian, ^eie soon osBociated othevs i^pecting tihe^min

tions of pressure, smfl of the qmntity of 'vapour in ihe

^atmoaphere ; ibus well as 'respecting the often obsetved

.perioflidfel succession of the winSs, or the ''^hw of rotation'"

;of the wind, Galileo's just views of atmospheric pressui^

conducted Toiricelii, a year after the death of his great

teacher, to the construetion of the barometer. T!h«lt *fhte

<e61unm of mercury in the TorriGellia& tube stood hi^'esr

;at the loot of a tower or of a hill, than ooiitiB smmnit, 'wotadd

fappiear to have been first remarked at Pisa, by dbudJo

Secigaardi; {^^) taxi was observed £7^ years lAter in

,!EWoe by Pernor, who,. «t the request df Iris hrothavinihwr,

Pascal, ascended the Pny de D6me,'a mouirtain ^4^^ebdh

leet highar than Yesuvias. The idea ctf ^eanplc^g 'fife

baorometer for the measurefm^nt of heights now preseifited

Jissi£ zBadSgr ;»'ii^may possibly Qiaveibeen finrt wvi^akoned %

.final's .aauiBid % a letter from iDeseortes. (Wft) It- is

\ifimnsi9e80ary ^to ;e&q)lsin at length all thstt the bwanvdter

^oployed asm hypsometnc in^trnmeBit for'tbe determinctlaen

lef diffidssBces a( elevation upon the 'smfface of the eai^h, aad

, wBOk metarological .iBStroment lorinve^tigating the'inSucaiee

<43f immentB ^ air, 'has 'eontribo^ to the extension of

.phjeieal (get^rapky and nvsteorological knowledge. The

Jdoj^otiQiis of :the'tiieory of the currents of the atmosphere

. "WHBe Jaid brfoiK iihe close of the ITth centurv. 'Baecsi in

. iSAA, m hist cdebrated " EEistom nsfturalis let experimentalis

de Tod'iB,'^ ^^) had the mmt of ^n^dering tbe direction

. «f winds tin ^eonnedian with temperature and aqueous

ipiedipitaiioDB ; (but mnoatbeinatiosffly denying the ivuth of

.ikeGafoa^cBn aystem, he reaBOnedoii.Jtht pod^dyu^^'^^hat

S38 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOBT pF THE COI^XEHPXATION OP ..>

OUT atmosphere may turn daOj ioubcL the £arth like Hm
heavens, and may thus occasion the East wind/'

Hookers comprehensive genius acted here also as thii
• restorer of light and order. (*22) JJe recognised the influence
of the Earth's rotation, as well as the existence of upper and^
lower currents of warm and cold air, passing frcan thfe.
equator to the poles, and returning from the poles to the
equator* Galileo, in his last Dialogo, had indeed also
considered the trade winds as a result of the Earth's rotatioa^ .
but he ascribed the remaining behind of the particles of as ^
within the tropics to a vapourless purity of the au: ia those
regions. {^^) Hooke's juster view was not revived until •
the 18th century, when it was again put forward by HaUepj .
and explained more circumstantially and satisfactorily in
regard to the operation of the velocity of rotation pr<^er to ..
each p^allel of latitude. Halley had been previously led *
by his long sojourn in the torrid zone to publii^ an exediesnt.:'
work on the geographical extension of the trade winds and :
monsoons. It is surprising that in his magnetiiC expediliQi^:
he makes no mention of the '' law of the winyds" — 99
important for the whole of meteorology, — ^as its genedi
features had been recognised by Bacoi\, and by Jdbannc^ ^
Christian Sturm of Hippolst^in, who, according to Bfewster^i
(524) was the true discoverer of the differential thenaoiB0ter« 1
In the brilliant period of the foundation of '^matbeoooatical .
natural philosophy," attempts to investigate the moisture i)f ..
the atmosphere in its connection with variations of t^npfiei^
tore, and with the direction of the wind, were^ot wantisog*.
The Academia del Cimento conceived the hqpy i^ea of 1
determining the quantity of vapour by eva{M)ra(ion aoii <

TU£1JKITi<!BSlii. — ^DISCOTBBIES IK THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 830

pifecipitation. The oldest Horehtine hygrometer was accord
ingly a condensation hygrometer, an apparatas in which the
quantity of precipitated water which ran off was determined
by its weight. (•^) To this condensation hygrometer, which^
aided by the ideas of Le Boy, has gradually led in our owh
day d to the exact psyehrometric methods of Dalton, DanieU,
find Angttste, there were added, according to the example
previously set by Leonardo da Vinci, {^^) the absorption
hygrometers made of animal or vegetable substances, of
Saiituri (1625), Torricelli (1626), and Molinenx. Catgut,
find the beards of a wild oat, were used almost at tht^ same
time. I][istruments of this kind, founded on the absorption
of i^e aqueous vapour contained in the atmosphere by organic
sabi^tances, were provided with indexes and counterpoises,
find were very similar in construction to Saassuie^s and
Deluc^s hair and whalebone hygrometers; but the instru-
ments at' the 17th century were deficient in the determina-
tion of fixed dry and wet points^ so necessary for the
c(»npanson and understanding of the results. This desi-
d^atum was at last supplied by Begnault, but without
xeierence to the variation which might be occasioned by time
in the susceptibility of the hygrometric substances employed^
Pictet^ (^^) however, found that the hair of a Guanche
mummy from Teneriffie, which might be a thousand years
old;, employed in a Sailssare's hygrometer^ still possessed a
satisfactory degree of sensibility.

Electric action was recognised by William Gilbert as
the operation of a natural force or power allied to magnetism*
The book in whkh this view was first enounced, and even
jn which the terms ''electric force/' ''dectrio emanations,^'

smO iJBfdOBS xif'ixBB jurioiui { wxBB '.fmnMuiBitfaeDDii m

ami '^dbetnc jattiwtiaii^' .(^) nrate ifiirt lempkgrsd^ sBike

.iroik to vhieh I ilwve ftlm% so often atkaad, ^pvbUW.

iin 16D0,>aiid esiitlsd ^iBhysmhgf iif iWiigiMte^taariljrf tfte

.fiailh w A {(voat Htf^'^ (de Jiagno«Bi|giitte ^ielhi^.

'' The faniHy of nMnotiog, wb«n<3riibfaftd,:li^Ui i<afaet«M!,

mhitaret w»g lie ihoir .naime^ does Bxt/^ mw^ fiiUt,

'^bekmg esclnsivelj to »ttmb8r> wUok k^Aicooianed eaift-

joioe thxowB<i]p'b]rtbe«W8yeBof theaao^adclin whuiki^^

iinsecte, antorand wdnm^ aote indowdias on '^per|Mtenlftanfa0,

^(ostetfois s^puli^sis) . .TkaaMsadtiiig poitcdbdoiiBB taaiiidiiiB

dsm of veiy<diffiBrcBit ?sabsfam]ieB;^Biick jb -^bn^ anliikii;

f sealing waK.aad all (ramj^^ sackimjML, raodaUiikindA d

pxeciaias jstone^^dum andTaek aakt^' flthe akrsasttiaaf &

«leot»^t J ABcitcd iras nmasiifed bjrtOilbartlagr'iQflns xi£jn

Lilian nag^ . (aot weay taioatt)^ aaowing^fnaRly ui'a pasofc ^•

soriom dedoicum)-. rnxj^eimiksc io the' apparataa eaofA^il

•bj.HBfL7iaiid% BniMter^ on '^tryiag A& i&Bokmaif asdtal

on diSbnaakiXaktatdk bf ?iraniitk«adi£BietiDau

Siibett sajEsifietflier (ob^ ibafc ' '^t&ieliDiuas Emrid cto^yndDae

;jnDe vefifast imdigriluBain dKalp^air^ «iiB fiiatajdblng'nrilL

. fiSk Bs *]iiiiit laabrflfltofitaiu. ^Ihe t^eanatriai i^beija irii

logaUNDaB faf iQivdeeliiedEaneei(P) '((9JkilMia4dbaHsiptfae

decteiQe t^ongn^ur tct ^edksoie^^; Jar site ^ eltdMic 'aoiui

iteads.toypraduoediie'OAhfiBiaa dt wMst /(mafeixs. dwiiMs

<e0t motw uMacei:««tio2iia tmatarias);^^ la iilhete idbseore

axioms is expressed the viw ^ ii .teBam jdoetBiattjEr*^

juamfiastatioxi of. afoine like a»fgnefanL hBlwigiTi|piDgaato

.SB asLoh. JTotiiiBg iwm ^est >aaad cof 'i^nbaoaij ^ar (of 'ifte

i^difbsease.bataEBtQtiiwaktoaB and'candaatHB*

She ingmiaaB ^discomMr uaf 4bsd mpaaaf^ fitted «

^^G^iffnke, ^pss^the^first irho dbserv^ mapethan'mare j^heno-

"iDeBa df <Attfnectim. In his esperiiiente^ made viA ««

^^bbed €^ et salphar; lie recogmsed ^plienomena ^^f

^yepUlsiM^ <vyc}i ^dftemrai^s led 4o « knowledge of tiie-laws

'€f^tbe'Spha^t5f'«isiioii tntl df 'the dtttribation ^f ^eetiieity.

'^He^heaid the "fefi^^^Grand and sv^tkefifst'lig^ in acrtsficidHj

^eKctted diectri^rfty. Li «hi experiment made by ?fewteii'in

1675, the 'fifsttraeesof 'fee'^*«lectric'charge'' in-aTiiBbed

pkte"6f glass *W€»e «een. (*») -We^have ^here awight oat

only tte fi«st 'germs of -the scieneeof dect^ty, #bicli, 'in

' 4t6 gpefft-^aad ^i^galany T#tai3«fl 'deviilopnieid;^ haB nott0!fiy

'beeoms' ose of ^the most imfortsaA parts of metecvrolvgr^

'^bkt^l^o, iinoe'we have leaarnedthftt^magn^smis one dPflie

'^mai^firid 'hrms in ^^Hdh ^ec^iiisy diseldses itseiff, has

'leafed up^to ns^so sftmch belo^i% tiorthe ii^t^nal opertttron

*IJf tefTestrial piSwers' or forces.

' - ^AMough W^l in 1708, Sto^ien 'Gmy 'in -1734^, a^
NoUet, conjeetrured the iddiit% 6f ^^fri^krn^^ectmilyBitS'of
-<«glltoing,-y«t.^he experimentiil ttrtamty was first altained
-«bdat the middle of < the IBih emimy by 'Ike ^aaeoesiSfiil
--"^^sbovofmBS ^^ the'SUustrions Bmtjamki Trasifeyn. V^tma.
'4tdB' ^^»the dectricprocsss ^passed iiom (the ^ Aetiaein ''of
'.^peoiiktive'plrfsies to that t)f 'tke -^esmieal iso&templation-^f
'^aitcse-^-^KMn the ehamber of "Ga^ stud^xt to' the open^fi^ffl.
^•Hfee doelme^ef dectricity^iibe that rf- turtles ^aflfl'^f^iHttg-
^ii«ti»CD/has4ad long periods of exeeedisgly'slow devdepmesit,
r^CEfi^'in^ihese^ree'bmn^bes^the kbours of Fmnkim ^a»d
-T<^a, TkooMs '¥ocmg ^and MAoBy ^Oenrted anffl ^lani%>
'^ttrocised ihm i^ecfMnperaries -to an ^muaUe aetm^. 'QHie
^pfOgTCBS'^ttaiaan knewled^is^iiffinfiy c0mro0ted'wllbs«tii
'Jid^av&tftioa»»<ofH»lTjmaJ^'and df gqfldwfly . wiSlLwrofl' a^tt^ty*

N

842 BPOCHS ISf THE WOnOWt OF THX cxHffiraa&AamN os

But if^ as we have already remaxked, by the iBTeakioii ai
appropriate although aiill very impeiibot physical inslni^
ments^ and by the sagacity ot Galileo, ToiriceiU, and tiid
members of the Acoademia del Gimento, the zdaiaons ai
temperature, the vaiiatioiis of the atmospheric presmre^ uai
the qnaatity of vapour in the air, beeaioe ob}ects of imme*
diate research; on the other hand^ all ikah regards tiie
ehemical cooqposilion of the atoosphese remained wrapped
in ohBCurity. The fDondaiions of '' pneumatic chemistry^
were indeed kdd by Johann Baptist van Helnumt and Jiaa
Bey, in ikt first half|**^«ad by Hooke^ Mayow^ Boyle^ odi
the dogmatizing Bedier in the latter half of the 17&
eentary; bat however striking was the comet apt>reheQsia]l
of particmlar loid important phenomena^ yet tiie insight mfca
their connection was wanting. The old belief in lie
elementary simplicity of the air wfaioh aetsin combosticffly
in the oxydatixm of metals, and in respiration, formed aa
obstacle diftcalt to be ov^eome.

^e inflammable or light-e&tingaishing kinds of gsB oe-
emring in caves and mmes (the '' spiritos letales'^ of tUsfJi
mA the escape of these gases in the shape of bubbles in masshtt
and mineral springs^ had already arrested the attention oi ^
Erfurt Benedictine monk Basilios Valentinuis, who probafai^
hebi^ed to the dose of the I5th caitury, and of Libavios,
tfn admirer of Paracelsus, in 161^. Comparisons ware diawn
between what was aeetdeotaliy remarked in aloheuustic kbo>
latoiieg^ and what was seen to have been prepared in the gteat
laboratoades of nature^ espedalfy in the intmor of the eartk.
Mining cqpeialicms in beds rich m ore^ (paittioiilarly such tf
(Bont«lned pyrites whidiL beeome'hen^d by oa^datjon aai
Qotttaflfc elBet|w%), iM to Antiqipatioiiis ol. ihe eheaiiQil

J

9HB tJ]IZV1!]tSB.*---I»Q9C0TBEIB» IN TSS OELBSTZAL 9PAGB8. 34$

xalations between metals^ addsj and the air 'which gamed
aeoess fiom without. Paraodsns^ whose &acies beloi^ ia
the epoch of the first conquesis in America^ already remarked
the dissngag^ment of gsus when iron wna dissolved in sol*
Jihiiric add. Tan Hehnont^ who first made use of &0
word '^ gas/' distingiiishes gases from atmospheric air^ and
dBo, on aceonnt of their non^eondensability^ firauL vie^oars*
He regards the donds an Taponrs^ wliieh^ wljiea the sky ii
Teay dear^ are changed into gas ^bjr cold and l^ tha
xnftiieneB of iha heavenly bodbs/'^ Gt^, he satjrs^ can only
beooise wiater when it has previiausly been i^etysoisibmied
into vapour. 13iese views of meleonddgieal preoeaees be^
lonaed to. the first half of the 17th eentoz^v* Yan HJdbnonit
J^t ,.*.»,»»« «U.fc «,^^ ,l,»»™,
^nd separating his '^ Gas sylvestre/' (under which name he
jnoluded all uninflammable gases different from pureatnu^,
q^hem air^ and incapable of supporting flacaie and respira^-
tion) ; yet he made alight bum ia a v«Bel ImiBg its moaih
Hi.water> and remarked that as the flame w^t oul^ the water
entered^ and the ^' vxdume of air'' diminished. Van £^
anont also soughitor demonstrate by determinatioQa of wei^btij^
(which we find already in Cardaous), that all the solid parts
<rf pka<^ «e fonoed from water.

The medi»^ alchemistio oi»nJons «C tiie compoation of
'inetals^ and of theiv combustion in air whereby their hsi*
hssktj was destroyed, incited to the exaaninationiof what took
place during the process, and ol the dianges undergone by
ibe metals themsdves^ and by tibe air isi cmitaid; with them^
;C!airdanus had abeady become arwafee inJSftS ^ the moTeaals
jgi.»weight:that takes place dnrisg the oxidat»Mi of lead, andj
jTlfnitieinthQ^piiiicf tbepblc^a^ aaiaifaed

Siib i!90fin.mniSBinaBY<»iTBDtaHiii»H«<i«

it^tiieeica|iaof a^'eelestiaUkijrsafarti^ oBoamagiim^^
bBtitwnii«^uixtilei|^7m»ttEfcermrd^ Begrf^K

esoaedhq^ sloUul. eKpauQcntor at Bttgemo^^who/lMid'cift-
aaoned with' great aoouaojibeiiwRnKof im^ dnagitliei
c&kaiaiioBoi lead, tinaiidaiiiinuniy^ainuaaad the impoviBst*
mnlt that the incEeasd'of weight was to4»rjHttritnited to1te>
BOOOBaian of. air to the laetaUic oah^. aaying^/^ JaiicBjpontti
dki sQBsticsis gl.erictiManent.qiie.ce. svnmftt dA p»ide» vie^A
cb rairqai'dai» le vase a €si^ eofesti/f (•*•) .

Men had Tiov. entered oatbe path* itiaA vtt ie oootet.
t^.tiie Ghemistiy^of ourdagfie^ and throqghaiiq the hno ehdyfi '
of* a {^Bat^aosmieal^pheiioBwnoBi the oonmctiDiihetireeR tiM .
QKjrgen. of the atiBGqphere.aQd the lifesef jlkmlm^i .Bukifai::!
oombuiiiioii^of idcas'udiich ii€&t pieaoitedatsdf.. tD^diatavri
gmshdlmeaTnasorasingnkrljoomidieatediDBtii]^^ Homutk^
tiw- e&d o£ the 17th omtuxy^theee Btosa^r-obBGiarAjimiitt
Hoebe in hss Mierographia (1665)>.Biidmom)dktui0il]r«Mi>
M^w (lB69;).and.WiUis (1671),-^bd[kl m
oliidAm^aeridLpBaiiJelee^ (0|8iitu»iiitoo-aeix«s>{)ahiii^^
8iao)« — identical . with those* wfaidi.are fixed in sattpjotiev-^
coartaanediin the anr aadicomtituthig th»>nBce8sasy eonditioi
ofioombuatioR. '^ li irasrsiajtod that the]ffBfciTirtioi»jof >flai»
in a close space does not take pieee Jnxiii<the air hmg ovet^
sHtuiiat^. iifithiVBpaiHB^pKDceeding. £bqhi iho.biitiiixig bodfi
faat^that thiari extinetioii is aooneqpMfiee of the entire hIn
seipitiaii of the nikcKaficial partidlie (^^qnnkm-iiutro^aeteHi^)!
\dbdGhs the "air at fix&t' contained/' The anddeiDijr incfeesMd^
g(ew whfiia mdltiiig sal^tire (emittiiDg. osgrgeii) ia«lmral:>
nfien.the ooab) aaod the exudaiicst.ol sattpBte amobaftwiito
in oontad; iiith the atmoa^berc, appear taUise4X>ndi||^ t#'''
this oji^ob; Acpoiding to Magroir^ tfaer* jespiratieaiiHi^''^''

aiupafl^ (i\ Tdudt. titfis prndiuthm^ofr BmiridL hoeit^ md' the*
cttwremoR . o£' Uaek into^ radi hkiai! Bon^ the result^ thev
pnneaaie of] nomliiigHon^ afncbtba wldintioniortDet&l^ aa»;
aUidblW«kmtl(HLthfflftiiitK)<rgttidpn^^ '

ittv tbgr wrtiphl^wtioi diBnniito)r> fhef "ph^'neady iiie'part afi'
oxjtgeiL ISifi. OiutibiidjFdonbtmgilldMtrSojieore^^
thiii'>tiiA;pioatiiQe of Bawuii$in:,ciaialliAm[ii^
isbsao0a9«q^ta<ih§ prMM8'<^ ccmduattivf but imtiXBMinedl
tmoartaui MNto)]t&«mtroiLS«iis(ii]re.

Oxjgenwasto Hooke and Mi^ofifv con ideal:: objeot or*»i
fiflti»ftto£ thatTmagJTiiitioiit . Tbsiafiate'clieimistraiQdir
pkjvioWgist Hdoi^ hulfl&S^&ntusam' oxygen; emape* as'gw^
iuiiatg&v^a&ti&ft'&Qia the lead: whieh> Ue^ caloaned/ undea^'*
aoa ^istfiOBi&iiesiki; He mm * tba^ gM* eMa;)e> . hub mthout: esu^ >
aminnig ita nature otr reiBatkii^ the vividneas ofi tfae> ffioherv
o«aw<niad Iqr ii». HaleB did mA. dime the importanee. o£::
ther^snbrtanna whioh he. had prodttcedi/ Hb ^fid'evolotioh:
cL.hgjxb in.h0die&.bimdnginot)^en.ga»i audits propartfes^v
vKSfo. djieoovejeed^.as laa^r) belief e quite iad)qie9daiitl^.(^^)*
—hy Enestle]! ia 177&.1774»,,hy.Saheeldiu U74.17,7S^;ttid^
by? I^Toisier aDdiTradaine mll^&t

Xhe^QornxBeaoBiDeiri^iaft pnemn^c eheinis^ havt faeeft.
tottcbednpoii^iB^ these, ]^^^ iaitbdr hifitoiic roonneelio^y j
becau8e9,liIi£.theifeeUa.beg^aaing^ of. eleotrie setenee^.theyi'
prq[)fU3ed<thfi wagf, £Qarihe.eiilai^^.vi6W8^ vhiob the aueeeed^
iiigrceiLtui]r.baabeea.abk.toicnm of tiia.oomtitiitieitfof ther
atnvowphece^ ajd of. its;iQ£teoxQl(^oalri^ations. The' idfiar>
ol ^^ficaUj-distiiusttgpsea. was iierer. pacfBetlj;^ dear, ta^'
thofifj^ vho.in.tlie sereateeiKthtc^toxyrpcadaced tbesa^ gases*.
Men. b^^. ag^-^ to attnbste, tbtf diffeieaoe. heiwG&a
atmoapherio su>.a&d.the ineapicabiey li^^t^extingushiiig^ ,ovv

5t6 XPOOHS IN THB HISTOST OF THlfi C019TEMPLA11LON OF

iBflammable gaseis^ exclusively to the admixture of certem
yaponrs. Black and Cavendisli first shewed in 1766 tkt
<»rbonic acid (fixed air) and hydrogen (combnstible air) tn
specifically distinct aeriform fluids. So long had the ancient
b^ef in the elementary simplicity of the atmoisph^e impeded
the progress of knowledge. The final investigation of the
chemical composition of the atmoisphere, by a most accurate
determination of the quantitative relations of its constitooit
parts by Boussingault and DumaSj is one of the bnlHsrit
points of modem meteorology.

The extension of physical and chemical knowledge^ whicli
has been here described in a fragmentary manner^ oonld not
lemain without influence on the early progress of Geolc^*
A great part of the geological questions with the solution of
which our age is occupied^ were stirred by a man of tli^
most comprehensive knowledge, the great Danish anatomist
Nicolaus Steno (Stenson) in the service of the Grand Diie
of Tuscany, by an English physician Martin Idsier, and by
*' Newton's worthy rival,'' {^^) Bobert Hooke. Steno's
Merits in reject to the superposition of rocks have been de-
veloped by me more fully in another work. {^^) Previously
to this period, and towards the end of the fifteenth centuiy,
Leonardo da Yinci, probably in laying out the canals in
Lombardy which cut through alluvium and tertiary strata,—
Ibracastoro in 1517, on the occasion of seeing rockv strata
eontaining fossil fish accidentally uncovered at Monte Bolca
near Verona,— and Bernard Palissy in his investigations
Fespecting fountains,— had recognised the traces of a foraoer
oceanic world of animal life. Jjconardo, as if with the pre-
sentiment of a more philosophical division of animal forms,
terms the shells '' animali che hanno rosea di f?ion'/' Steno,

THE TTNITEBSE.— DISCOyB&IES IN THS CEIASTXAL 8FACBS. 3 47

in his work on the sobstaiices caatamed in rocks, (de
Solido intra Solidum natHraliter contento) (1669)^ distin^
goishes ''rocky strata (primitive f), hardened before the
existence of plants and animals^ and, therefore, never con-
taining organic remains, from sedimentaiy strata (turbidi
maris sedimenta sibi invicem imposita), which alternate with
each other and cover those other strata first spoken of. All
deposited strata containing fossils were originally horizontal.
Their inclination has arisen partly from the outbreak of sub-
terranean vapours which the central heat (ignis in medio
terr^) produces, and partly by the giving way of lower sup*
porting strata. (*^) The valleys are the result of the falling
in, consequent on the removal of support/'

Steno's theory of the formation of valleys is that of Deluc^
whereas Leonardo da Vinci, {^^^) like Cuvier, considers the
valleys as formed by the action of running water. In. the
geological character of the ground in Tuscany, Steno thought
he recognised revolutions which must be attributed to six
great natural epochs, (sex sunt distinctse Etrurise facies, ex
pnesenti fiide Etruri® collect®) : at" six recurring periods
the sea had broken in, and after continuing for a long time
to cover the interior of the country, had withdrawn again
within its ancient limits. Steno did not, however, regard
all petrifactions as belonging to the sea; he distinguishes
between pelagic and ]5resh-water petrifactions. SciQa, in
1670, gave drawings of the petrifactions or fossils of
Galabria and Malta : our great zoologist and anatomist
Johannes Mtiller has recognised among the latter the oldest
drawing of the teeth of the gigantic Hydrarchus of Alabama

(the Zeuglodon Cetoides # Owen), a maminal of the great
VOL. n. 2 a

348 EP0CIH9 ^ TBS mSTOBX.OE TBS. COyTKMPLATIQK 09 .,

or^er of the Cetaceee: (*^) the crown of these, ieetbia,.
formed like those of seals. ,

Lister, as early as 1678, made, th^ important .atatemett^n

that each kind of rock is chara^terjise^ by itS',own fossils>..^

and that "the species pf Muirej;, 3?ellina.and Trochus^v which v

are found in the quarries of Nortbamptonahire, do^ indeed,. -r

resemble those of the present, sea> but when clQ^ely ^xammed-^

are found to differ from ..themo . "They ,a^e/^.he.8aid^>^

" specifically different." (*^^) In the. then imperfect, state, d n

descriptive morphplggy, strict proc^ of the jos^nesa of these.- i

grand anticipations or conje.ctu];ea QQuld,not indeed be giveiL.<

We here pomt.ont an early dawning, and sooa extinguished. -

light, anterior to the great paleontojlQgicsd.labomra of Cuviar^^

and Ale^an^der Brongniart which have ^v^ a, new farm t»

the geology of the sedimentary. . forma^on^, r^?^®) JJistec,-^

attentive to the regular succes^on of strajta. in England, ^was .

the first who felt the want ;oC geological. maps.. ...Althou^-^

these phenomena in their. co^ucKion with ancient inundations, f

(single or repeated) attracted interest and attention,. and,--

mingling together .belief and knowledge, produced in >

England the '^ systems" ^f Jlay,.Woodward,.'Burnet; .ajadt

Whiston^ yet, from the entire. Tifant,of mineralogieaL dis- ^

tinetion of the constituent parts. of compound. rocks, all that *

relates to the crystalline and massive eruptive rocks and : .

their transformations remained unstudied* • JSTotwithstanding >

the assumption jof, a central heat in the. globe, earthquakea^' r

th^mal springs, and volcanic eruption^, were not regarded \

a^^ the resiilts of the reaction of the planet against, its •

external crust, but were ascribed to such small local r causes^ '^

as, for example^ the spontaneon^ ^mbnstion of bedsvol .

-.'1 • /_ . f • > . . >

THE UNIVBBSB. — ^DISCOYEBIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 349

. ■ :" .-.-; .:'.'. . ' /••> •'):.-. • - ' ' >'>-■• ' =
pyrites. Even ^^cpfBnmeQts madeia. sport by Lemery in the
year .1700 ex^^rted :a.jk)iig-(y>l|tmaed Muence^ (^ volcaoie
th^rief^ although th^pe spjlght have beezi raised to 'more
general views by the imaginatiye Protogsea of Leibnitz
(1680). . . ; o ...

ThePtotogs^jWj^jcVissometixnesmo^ poetic tiian the
many .metrical attempts of theifame philosopher which have
recenl^ly been brought to. li^t^ (^^) , teaches the scori&-
cation of the cayemotis^ . glowing^ and onee self4mninons
cacust.ot the earth j-^tbe gradual cooling of the heat-
radiating surface pn¥.eloped> in vapours ;t-Hthe condensa-
tioQ,and precipitation into, water,. of the gradually cooled
atn^^sphereof vapour >— the lowering of: the /sea by the
sinlfing of its waters into internal hollows. in Itfae earthf<-^
and finally tij^e falling in of, these caves or hollows causing
the inclination of the strati^. The physical part of these
wild fancies offers some traito which^ to the adh^ents of our
modem ^and eveiy way more advanced geological science,
wiU. not appear dtpg^ther deserving of lejediion. Such are,
the transference of heat in the intericH: of the globe/ and
the cooling by radiation from the surface; the existence of
an atmosphere of vapour; the pressure exerted by these
vapours upon the strata during their, consolidation ; and the
double origin of the masses as either fused and solidified or
precipitated from. the waters. The typical character and
mineral differences of rocks, i, e. the associations of cer->
tain subataoces, chiefly ^stalline, xecurring in the most
distant regions of the earth, are as little spoken of in the
Protogeea as in Hookers gelgnostical views. In the last
named writer, also, physical speculations on the operation
of subterranean forces in earthquakes, in the sudden eleva-

350 ETOCH3 IN THE HISTOST OF THE CONTEMPULTIOK OT

tion of the bottom of the sea and of coast districts^ oad in
the fonnation of monntains and islands^ predominate. The
nature of the organic remains of the ancient world even led
Hooke to form a conjecture that the Temperate 2k)ne most
once have enjoyed the temperature of a tropical climate.

We have still to speak of the greatest of all geognostical
phenomena^ the Mathematical Figure of the Earthy in
which we recognise as in a mirror the primitive condition of
fluidity of the rotating mass^ and its solidification into the
present form of the terrestrial spheroid. The figure of the
earth was sketched theoretically in its general outlines
at the end of the seventeenth century^ although the
numerical ratio of the polar and equatorial diameters was
not assigned with accuracy. Ficard's measurement of a
degree^ executed with measuring instruments which he had
himself improved (1670), is the more deserving of regard,
because it first induced Newton to resume with renewed zeal
the theory of gravitation, which he had already discovered
in 1666 and had subsequently neglected : it ofiered to that
profound and successful investigator, the means of demon-
strating the manner in which the attraction of the earth
maintained in her orbit the moon impelled onw.ard by the
centrifagal force. The much earlier recognised fact of the
flattening of the poles of Jupiter (**®) had, it is supposed,
led Newton to reflect on the cause of such a departure from
sphericity. The experiments on the length of the seconds'
pendulum made at Cayenne by Richer in 1673, and on the
west coast of Africa by Varin, had been preceded by others
less decisive (***) made in London, Lyons, and Bolognat,
including a difierence of 7° of latitude* The decrease of
gravity from the pole to the equator, which had long been

THE UNIVEESB, — BISCOYEBIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 351

denied even by Picard, was now generally admitted. Newton
recognised the compression of the earth at the poles as a
result of its rotation : he even ventured^ upon the assump-
tion of homogeneity of mass^ to assign the amount of the
compression. It remained for the comparison of degrees
measured in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries under
the equator^ near the North Pole^ and in the temperate zones
of both hemispheres, to furnish a more correct deduction of
the mean compression, or the true figure of the earth. As
has already been remarked in the Picture of Nature in the
jBrst volume of the present work, {^^) the existence of the
compression announces of itself what may be termed the
most ancient geognostical event, viz. the state of general
fluidity of the planet, and its progressive solidification.

We commenced the description of the great epoch of
Galileo and Kepler, Newton and Leibnitz, with the dis-
coveries made in the celestial spaces by the aid of the newly
invented tel6scope ; we terminate it with the figure of the
earth as then recognised from theoretical considerations.
*' Newton attained to the explanation of the system of the
Universe, because he succeeded in discovering the force {^^)
of whose operation the Keplerian laws are the necessary
consequences, and which could not but correspond to the
phenomena, sruce those laws corresponded to and foretold
them.'' The discovery of such a force, the existence of
which Newton has developed in his immortal work, the
Principia, (which may be regarded as a general theory of
Nature), was almost simultaneous with that of the In-
finitesimal Calculus, wliich opened the way to new mathe-
matical discoveries. The work of the intellect shews itself
in its most exalted grandeur, where, instead of requiring

852 HISTOBT 07 THE CONTEMPLATION 07 THE TTNIVEBSE.

• • r - •• ••

the aid of outward material means^ it receives its li^t
exdnsiv-dy from the pore dbdt^:^t{ou of thie matUematxcal
developmmt of ilhoQght.> Th^e dwdls ii ^pdwerfol chscfm,
deeply Idt and acknowledged in'^- femtiqtilly, in the don-
templatioii of mathemtitioal timlSiB;^ in the .eternal telUitfos
of time and space, as thiey dlsdloi^ the^ilelyesr in hannodis,
numbers, and lines. i^\' Th^ improvement 'of an In-
tellectual instrument of reseatteh-^-^^'aiialyisisf^'has powerfdlf
* .promoted and advanced HbAt *lnutttd fruelSficatioxi 'of' ide^
. which is no less> importanft thlia- th^ir aibimdaait^ produdiaiL
It has opened te us ne^ regiohfe of ihtttettiieless 'iexteilt m
. the )^i5nsic8a -contemplatidii 'fel fee'UtiiveWe^bbtli' in h
terrestrial and edestial is^here^, id the tidSl fltictuationd i)f
the Ocean, as well as in the periodic perturbatidiis of tb
planeta*'

L 4 ' A • ' «

a53

vai.

SSmOSPBCT 07 ^THE PBINCIFAL EPOOHS IS THE
CONTEMPLAOXON OP THE UNIVEESE.

"^Refcrospectiye ^ View" W'^tlie Epochs ot^ Periods ' wliich have been
' siioeessk6lj'e<ttdidered:^*^]Mtiettce^of Eitcirnal' Eveiits on' *3Le
De^dbprnfent of the ReMgnitibn of >1ih^ Unrrefb^ a^ alffhok:-^
Wide and varied Sooj^ land dlose nJdtual Connexion of the
Scientific Endeavours of modem times.—The Histoiy of the
Physical Sciences gradually becomes coincident with that of the
Cosmos.

»I APPEQACH ihetemuoatioH of a coQipeheofiive and hasdrdous
.undertaking. JAore than two thousand. years hate been
, /passed in review, . from .the earliest state of intellectual eolti-
.yation amo|\g the nations who dwelt round the basin of the
.Mediterranean and in tho fertile river distriets of Western
,Asia,.to^ period the viewa and fedings of whidi pass by
..almost imperc^ptiblo shades into tihose of our own age. I
/kaye sought to present the histojy of < the gradually developed
.knowledge and< recognition of the Universe as a whole/in
r^even. distinctly maflced sections, oraait>were in a series of
.AS many distinotipictuses. Whether any measure of success
^has attended this att^fit io maintam in thdr due stlbor*
:dination fthe /mass ofaeetmttiktdd makeriials, to seize the
idiaracter of therleadiQg'QpoGhs, and to 'mark th<B paths in
whidiideas and < civilisatioia }biiye b^to conducted '<»r(fardiB,

854 XBTIIOSVIOT OF THB FBINCIVAL EPOCHS

cannot be determined by him who, with a just mistrost of
his remaining powers^ knows only that the type of so great
an undertaking has floated in dear, though general, ontlineB
before his mental eye*

In the early part of the section occupied by the epoch of
the Arabians, in beginning to describe the powerful influence
exerted by the blending of a foreign element with European
civilisation, I detenmned the period firom which the history of
the Cosmos becomes coincident with that of the physical sci-
ences. According to my conception, an historical view of tbe
gradual extension of natural knowledge, both in its terreslzial
and celestial sphere8,is connected with definite epochs, or with
certain events which have exerted a powerful intellectuaL influ-
ence within definite geographical limits, and which impart to
those epochs their peculiar character and colouring. Such wen
the enterprises which conducted the Greeks into the Euxise,
and led them to anticipate the existence of another sea shore
beyond the Phasis, — ^the expeditions to the tropical lands
which famished gold and incense ; — ^the passage throng
the Western Straits into the Atlantic Ocean, and the opening
of that great maritime, highway of nations on which wefe
discovered at widely separated intervals of time, Ceme and
the Hesperides, the Northern Tin and Amber Islands, the
Yolcanic Azores, and the New Continent of Columbus south
of the ancient Scandinavian settlements. The movements
which proceeded from the basin of the Mediterranean, and
from the northern extremity of the neighbouring Arabim
Gulf, and the voyages to the Euxine and to Ophir, are
followed in my historic description by the military expedi-
tions of the Macedonian conqueror,. and his attempt to fnse
together the nations of the West and of the East^ — ^by the

IN THE OOIITBMFLATIOK 07 THE X7KIVEBSE. 855

operation of the Indian maritime commerce^ and of the
Alexandrian Institute nnder ihe Lagidse; — ^by the Boman
Universal ij^pure nnder the Caesars; — and by the epoch of
the Arabians^ iiom whose attachment to the study of nature
and of her powers, and especially to astronomical and
mothemiatical knowledge, and to practical chemistry, great
benefits were derived. The series of external events which
suddenly enlarged the intellectual horizon, stimulating men
to the research of physical laws, and animating them to the
endeavoiur to rise to the ultimate apprehension of the
Universe as a Whole, closed, according to my view, with
those geographical discoveries, — ^the greatest ever achieved,—
which placed the nations of the Old Continent in possession
of ah entire terrestrial hemisphere till then concealed. Prom
thenceforward, as we have already remarked, the human
Meet prodices great resolte, no longer from the indte-
ment of external events, but through the operation of its
own internal power ; and this simultaneously in all directions^
Nevertheless, amongst the instruments which men formed
for themselves, constituting as it were new organs augment-
ing their powers of sensuous perception, there was one
which acted like a great and sudden event. By the space-
p^etrating power of the telescope, a considerable portion of
the heavens was explored as it were at once ; the number of
known celestial bodies was increased, and their form and
orbits began to be determined. Mankind now first entered
on the possession of the "celestial sphere*' of the Cosmos.
It appeared possible to found a seventh section of the history
^of the physical contemplation of the Universe, on the
-importance of these occurrences, and on the unity of the

366 JIETBOSPSCT OF IHS ,f BrlNCRAJ^ SfOC^S

. ead^vonrs whic];! the enp[plopientjof jibe (;e)^90Qpe ealkd

^ forth. If we . isompare^ "with the jdisc^v^ :of J^ithj^^ti^

jn^trument, jmotbet, great :4ia(fly«B7, b(Blppigipg :tth » -yery

. recent period^-T-that> ol,jJbe.ypitfdq^^,TT-:«#delie^jpiAa^(«

irjtuch it })aA exei;c^sed,.9^ .the ji^geoi^^ d&^ifp-^etfiffi

theoi7A-~K>n the.prodbctiDi;! of .the. iq^^lg of |]iQi|S9if^f9iid

.alkalies,p-;«nd on. ihe, long^ aoqght |4i^fei7:.of ,jd«fit»-

.j3aagn^ti$anj-TFe aifiive aij a.^fs of ^phenoiJieiis^ c^

^ forth at will,, which. fDj.fla^iyi^wctipps^,^ d^X i^to

the l^Qwle^ otl^e dcai^fn of ;^%pQi!reprspf mJpret^

J whick inay,, rather ,^fj^. to jfopa. a f&f^r^ ,i% tfee im^M

the f l^yri^,.Sfci^Qp,.tl^p^.tQ, j>eto^^

^x^tions..whi(^^ m

J»PffS^' .7^^OT,,th59ggh,$|ie.ffle^

jpt^ec)fcual .pro^ ^t f 1^ js^ jB(ipeflm%

^ Jor ,.oj^e [jsegfibki of hiiowp %i)k|9i jj^^,v^ i^^t^tNOK *o
^ja:pUQijjipe.op(thei^^ l^lieeN»))kii9KiB

j^Qfjih^e,8p .

[^ th^ ;fiiBtoxi<»^ .^Q^^fi^oDs, |df9Gri3^ §til|e lindiir
^^p^jK^i 9f pipr jytfca^ I :h%Ye^[j|i.#lm<|^iilll(«M^

JDfli^irt*^ the ][^^t «^egf^,<)f 4qy#1q99^ ^jbo -iirfiiA 'thflf

IN THE CONTEMPLATION OP THE TJNIVEESB. JB7 |

I

designed to famish towards the ebiddatioii of the seaeral '

picture of ndture. contaaned in the first volume, those
reisults of observation oil which the present state of our
Scientific opinions is ^ ^riiicipilly fourid^. ' ^^ubh,. which

0

a

according to ofher tiews than mine of the compontion of

book of nattire' may have appeared wanting^ will there

find its place. Excited by the brilliancy of new discoveries^

' and fed with hopes of which the delusiveness is pften not

discovered t01'kt6^ every age dreams that it has approached

hear to th^ culminaling point of ikt knowledge cmd compre-

hensioii of hatui^'. I doubt wheiher npon serious reflection

such a belief will really appear to enhance the enjoyment pf

^the present. A more aniinatiii£r conviction, and one more

'suitable to the idea of the.de^tinies of bur race. is. that the

'possesfsionS yet achieved are but a very inconsiderable

•^portion' Of thos6 which, in the advance of activity and of

' general cultivatioh, mankind m .their' freedom will attain m

'succeeding ages. ' In the unfading connection and course 9f

events, every successful investigation becomes a step, to the

•attainment of something beyond. •' ••" ' '

That which has especiaUy promote^ the grogrjBss of

vour, Hot to limit bui: regards to that which has been jusft

"achieved, but to te&t rigidly by weight and measure all earlifar

-as well to inore receni acquisitions ; to distmguish between

Inere inferences from analogies,' and certain knowledge,;

'andtb

'ments

'telluric powers or forces of nature, geology, iemd the study qf

858 XETBOSPXCfr of ths pbincipal epochs

antiquity. The generalitj of this method of criticism has
especially contributed to shew on each occasion the boim-
daries of the several sciences^ and to discover the weaikness
of certain systems, in which unfounded opinions or con-
jectures assume the place of facts, and symbolising myths
present themselves as grave theories. Vagueness of lan<
guage, and the transference of the nomenclature of one
science to another, have conducted to erroneous views and
delusive analogies. The progress of zoology was long
endangered by its being believed that, in the lower classes
of animals, all the vital actions must be attached to organs
similar in form to those of the highest classes; and tbe
knowledge of the development of vegetation in what have
been called the Giyptc^mic Cormophytes (mosses, liver-
worts, ferns and lycopodiums), or in the still lower Thallo-
phytes (sea weeds, liclifins and fungi) has been still moze
obscured, by the expectation of finding everywhere analo-
gies to the sexual propagation of the animal kingdom. (^^)
If art and poetry, dwelling within the magic circle of the
imagination, belong rather to the inner powers of the mind^—
the extension of knowledge, on the other hand, rests bj
preference on contact with the external world; and this
contact becomes closer and more varied as the iuterconrse
between different nations increases. The creation of new
organs or nstruments of observation augments the intel-
lectual, and often also the physical powers of man. More
rapid than light, the closed electric current now carries
thought and will to the remotest distance. Forces, whose
silent operation in elementary nature, as well as in the
delicate cells of organic tissues, still escapes the cognizance

J

IN THE GONTEMPLAnoy OF THE tJNIVEBSB. 359

of our senses^ will one day become known to ns; and called
into the service of mam, and awakened by him to a b'gher
degree of activity, will be induded in a series of ircieSmte
extent, through the medimn of which, the subjection of the
different domains of nature, and the more vivid understanding
of the Universe as a Whole, are brpxight continTzally nearer.

NOTES.

/j:-

NOTES.

(f) p. 4.«<-Koimds, BcL i. S. 50 (EngHdi eSA&m^ ToL i p. 43).

(^ p. 5.«-^ee mj Beklaon loBtorique da Voyage anz BAgioiiB ^gnm. T* L
p. 208.

^ p. B.^J)ttBA»^ Porg. i 85—28 1

" €k>d0r parevft il ckl di lor fiuiimeiQ«f
0 settentrional vedofo atto^
Poi che priyato se' di mirar qaene*

(*) p. e.-^-SduQer'B Bammtiiche'WerkB, 1826, Bd. xfiii. S. 281, 478, 480,
and 486 ; Gerviniis, nenere Gesch. der po«t National-Iittentiir der Benl*
aehea, 1840, Bd. i. S. 185; Adolph Becker im GhazikkB, Th. i. S. 219.
Compare therevnih Edward MoUer uber Sophokleiaehe NatnraiiaoliBniiiig,
vnd die tiefe Natorempfindimg der Griechen, 1842, S. 10 imd 20.

(*) p. 7.— Sohxuiase, Geschiohte der bfldenden Knoute bei den Alfteii, Bd.
u. 1843, S. 128—188.

(^ p. 8. — VhA. da £1. apod Belplioa, c. 0. Compare on: a passage of
ApoQonins Dyseolna of Alexandria (Mirab. Hist e. 40), Otfidecl MiiUar^
last work, Geseli. dor griedi. littentnr, Bd. i 1845, S. 81.

(7) p. 8.— Hesiodi C^ra el Bias, t. 602, 561 ; GkHtHng, in Hea. Carm.
1831, p. zix. ; miid, Gesch. der hellenischen Dichtknnst, Th. L 1885, S. 387 ;
Beni}tardy> Grondiiss der grieoh. litterahir, Th. ii. S. 176 ; Gottfiied Has
inann (Opuscnla, VoL vL p. 289) remarics, that Hesiod's pietoresqae dweri^
lion of ivinter has all the indieationB of gieat antiquity.

(^ p. 8.— Hes. Theog. t. 238-— 264. Hay not the name of the Nereid
Jlata (Od. li 326; XL xfiii. 48) express the phosj^uoio flashing of the evr

VOL. n. 2 b

^ I

{i K0TE8.

face of (lie Mft, as the lanie name, Matpa, eipniaea Ha ^ericlbg dog-ris
Sirins?

(*) p. 8.-*Caoipare JaoolM» Lsben nnd Kimst der Alten, i AMIi. iS.nL

n P- 9.-»-Iliaa> tuL 555*559; ir. 453-*465; li 115--199. Gobi.
pare alao the aocomiilated but animated deacriptioiia taken from tibe amiiil
world which precede the review of the army, ii. 458-— 475.

C^) p. 10.— Od. ziz. 431—445; vi 290; ix. U5— 199. Compan fhe
Myerdant oTcmihadowing grove" near Calypso's cave, ''fdifreaaimisartd
mi^ liogor with admiration, and gaze with cordial ddight," ▼• 55— -78 ; tb
breakers at the Pheaeian Islands, t. 400—442 ; and the gardens of Alcmoua^
Tii. 118 — 180. On the Teroal dithyrsmbus of Pindar, see Bockh, Piadan
Opera. T. ii. P. ii. p. 675—579.

(^ p. 11. — (Ed. Kolon, T. 668—719. Amongst descriptions of sceociy
disclosing, a deep feeling for nature, I would instance those of Gtlueron,
Jaihe BacohiBB of Emipides, y. 1045, when the messenger emerges from the
vaUey of Asopos (see Leake, Northern Greece, VoL ii^ p. 370) ; of thesnmise
in the Ddphic valley, in the Ion of Emipides. t. 82 ; and the ptctuie, m
gloomy colours, of the aspect of the sacred Delos, '^soiroimded by hoveriag
sea-galls, and scourged by the stormy waves" in Callimachns^ in the Hynui
on Delos. t. 11.

C^ p. 11.— rAccording to Strabo (Lib. vili. p. 866, Casanb.), vAen he
accuses the tragedian of giving to Elis a boundary geograpMcally incorreei
.This fine passage of Euripides is from the Oresphontes. The description of
.the exodknce of the country of Messenia is closely connected with the expo-
ntion of political circumstances <tiie division of the terxitfffy among ths
^eradidesy. Here, therefore, as Bockh has well remained, the description d
nature is connected with human a&irs.

(^) p. 18.— Meleagri Beliqeis, ed. Hanso, p. 6. Compare Jacobs, Lebea
mid Kunst der Alten, Bd. i. Ahth. i. S. xr. ; Abth. ii. S. 150 — 190. Zeno-
betti, in the middle Of the eighteenth century, supposed himself the first
jfisoovem of Meleager*fi poem on the Spang (MeL Gadareni in Ver Idylfioa,
;X759« p. 5). See Bnmckii A»al T. iii p. 105. There are two fine lyhva
.poems by Maiiauos.Sn Hie Anthol. Grseca, ii. 511 and 512. Meieago's
•poetry is strongly contrasted with the praises of spring in tiie Eclogues of
fiimerius, a sophist and teadier of rhetoric in Athens under Julian. TUtt
dyle of Himsrius is generally ornate, and cold, but in particular peris, and
-especially in his form of description, he sometimes comes very near the modern
manner of contemplating the umverse. Himerii Sophistae £cl<^ ti Dedt-

•*•

KOTES; in

iiiati<mes, cd. Wemsdor^ 17dO (Ontio lii. 8—6, and xzL 5). iThe magmfi-
oent situation of Constantinople could not inspire the soplnsts (Oral. vii. 6— 7»
md xvi. 3 — 8). The passages oi Nonnus refened to in the text are found in
ma^p. ed. Petri Cunsel, 1610, lib. ii. p. 70; vi. p. 109; zriii. p. 16 and^
610 ; xx«i* p. 694. Compare also Oawarofl^ Nonnos von Panqpofis^ der
Kckter, 1817, S. %, 16 und 21.

(») p. 13.~iE3iam Vae. Hist, et f!ragm. lib. iii. eap. i. p. 180, Knhn.
Compare A, Bnttmann^ QosBst de Dicsearcho, Namnb. 1882, p. 82, and
Geogr. gr. min. ed. Gail. Vol. ii. p. 140 — ^145. We find in the tragie poet
Cheeremon, a remarkable love of nature, and espeeiaDy a fondness for flowers,
whieh Sir William Jones- has noticed as resembling that of the Indian poets:
lee Welcker, griechische Tragodien, AbtL iii. S. 1088.

0^ p. 14.--Longi Bistoralia (Daphnis et C^iloe, ed. Seikr, 1843), Lib. i.
0; iii. 12; and iv. 1—8; p. 92, 125, and 187. See. Yillemain ear les
romans grecs, in hiA Melanges de lattkaturei, T. ]i« p, 435—448, where
Longns is compared with Bemardin de St-Pierre.

f^ p. 14.— Psendo-Aristot. de Mundo, e. 8, 14—20, p. 892, Bekker.
(») p. 14.— See Stahr's Aristoteles bei den Bomon, 1834, S. 173—177;
and Osami, Beitrage zur griech. irad rom. litteratnigesc^ichte, Bd. i. 1835,
S, 165 — 192. Stahr coijeetures (S. 172), as does Heumann, that the pre-
sent Greek is an altered version of the Latin text of Appuleius. The latter
says distinctly (De Mundo, p. 250, Bip.), *' that in the oomposition of hit
w(H*k he has kept in view Aristotle and Theophrastus.'^

(^ p. 14. — Osann, Beitrage sur grieeh, und roitt. Litterstorgesdbichtab
Bd. i. S. 194—266.

(^ p. 14.-^Cicero de Natura Deomm, ii. 87 ; a passage, in which Sextoa
Empiricus (Adversus Physicos, lib. ix. 22, p. 554, Fabr,) adduces an expre^
fpon of Aristoiie'a ta the same effect, deserves the more attention, because he
has aUnded a short time before (ix. 20) to another lost work, on divination
and dreams.

P) p. 15.— "Aristotdes flomen oratiouB aturenm fimdens" (Cic. Acad.
Qosest. ii. cap. 38.) (Compare Stahr, in Aristotelia. Th. ii. S. 161; and in
Ajristotdes bei den Bomem, S. 53.)

(^ p. 16.«-M6nandri Bhetoris Comment, de Encomiis, ex rec. Heeren,
1785, $ i- cap. 5, p. 38 and 39. The severe critic terms the didactic poem
on Nature a "frigid" (^^vxp^frc/wy) composition, in which the forces of nature
•re brought forward divested of their personality ; Apollo is light, Hera the-
whole of the pheenomeoa of the atmospliere^ and Joye is heat. Plutarch als^

Vf VOTES*

ndiailM ibe io-cdkd po«M «f nature, wliieK bavt 00)7 Uie mere extenal
form o£ poetrj (De And. Pott p. 87, Stcph.) The Stagirite (De Fbet. e. 1)
aonnden finpedodei ntlier a physiologirt than a poet, having noOung ii
eommcmwiih Honer» axoept tha oeatore in whtdi his Tenes are written.

(^ p. 16.-^" It masj aeem itnnge to endeavour to connect poctfy, nWi
r^oicee alwaya in variety, form, and ooilonr, with those ideaa vrhich are moit
limple and abstmae; Iruft it ia not the less coneet Poetiy, aaenoa^ ^bSjo-
aophy, and historf , sie not in themidvea, and essentially, divided from eaA
oQur i they sm nnited, either wban raan'a pariacolar stage of progreas |)aeei
him in a state of unity, or where tiie true poetic mood lestotea faim to sadi a
atate (Wilhehn Ton Hmnboldt, gesammette Werke, Bd. i 8. 9a--108.
Compare also Bemhar^, rim. latterate, S. 215—918, and Priediiel
Schlegel'a sammOiBhe Werke, Bd. i. 8. 108—110. CSoero (ad Qoai
fratren, ii 11) indeed aaeiibesto Lneretins^ who Virgil, Ovid, and QnintBiai^
have praised so highly, mere art than creative talent (ingenimi^*
(^) p. 17.— Lncrct. lib. ▼. V. 980—1456.

(») p. 17.— Bato, Fhttdp. p. 830; Cicero de Jjtg, i. 5, 15, ii. 8^ 1-3.
m. 8, 6 (compare Wagner, Comment Ferp. in Cle. de Ii%. 1804, p. 6);
Cic. de Qratore, i. 7, 28 ^. 15 Ellendt).

C^ p. 17* — See the exodkat work of Bndolph Abeken, Bectmr of the
OymnawHrn at Osnafarudi, pnUishcd in 1835, nnder the title of Cicero in
sonea Briefen, S. 481—434. The valnable hddition relative to Ciooo'i
birthplace is by H. Abeken, the learned nepbew of the antbor, wbo wu
formeily chaplun to the Fnusian embassy at Borne, and is now taking pait
in the important Egyptian expedition of Lepsina. Bespecting. the place of
Oieero'a birUi, see also Valeiy, Voy. hist, en Italic, T. iii. p. 421.
(^ p. 18.— Cic. Ep. ad Atticnm, xii 9 and 15.
(") p. 19.— The passages from Virgil adduced by Malte-Bnm (Annates to
Voyages, T. iii. 1808, p. 235—266) as bdng actoal local descripti<mai rnody
ahew that the poet was acquainted with the productiona cf different conntiia:
HtBt he knew the saffiron of MonnlrTmohis, the incense of the Sabeans, tte
trae names of several smdl rivers, and even the mephitic ▼aponie which n»
from a cav€B» in the Apennines near Amsanctns.

• f») p. 19,— Virg.fltog.i.856— 392,iu. 349^380; Jin. iii. 191—211,
it. 246—251, iT. 522*^528, xii. 684—689.

(») p. 20.— Kosmos, Bd. i S. 252 and 453 (En^ish edit. Vol 1 p.280i
Note 280). As separate pictures of natnral scenes, compare Ovid, Met. l
808—576, m. 155—164, iii 407—412, vii. 180—188, xv. 296—306;

«tift lib. i. EL I, 60, iib. IH. M. 4, 49, EL 10, 15. £x Ponto, Iib.a
Ep. 7 — 9. Kos8 has remarked, as being one of the rardy occurring instance*
ttf individual pidnres rdaling to ft determinate locality, tiie pleasing descrip*
lion of a fbnntain on Monnt Hymettns, beginning, ^'Estpropeporpnreob
eolles florentis Hymrtti" {Orid de Arto Am. iii 687). The poet is describing
Che fountain of KaUia, celebrated in antiquity, and consecrated to Aphrodite,
Irhich issnes fofrth on the western side of Hymettns, which is otherwise very
deficient in waters (see Boss, Letter to Professor Vnros, in the griechl
medicin. Zeitschrift, June 1887.)

(»»5 p. gO.-^TrbnHns, ed. Toss, 1811, Bleg. lib. i 6, 21—84; lib. iL \
87—66.

(■*) p. !iO.— Incan, Phars. iii. 400—452 (VoL i p. 874—384, Weber.)

(») p. 20.— Kosmos, Bd. 1. S. 298 (English edit. Vol i. p. 273).

(>■) p, 21,— Idem. S. 455 (English edit. p. 436). The poem of LncOina,
entitled .£tna, is very probably part of a longer poem on the remarkabk
natond objects of the island of Sicily, and is ascribed by Wemsdorf U
Comeilins Sevems. I would refer to some passages deserving of particnlat
flttetttion : to the praises of general knowledge of nature considered as ''the
fruits of the mind," ▼. 270^280; the kva currents, v. 360—370 and
474—515 ; the eruptions of water at the foot of the volcano (P) v. 395 ; the
Ibrmadon of pumice, v. 425 (p. xvl. — ^xx. 32, 42, 46, 50, and 55, ed. Jacob.
1826).

^) p. 21.— Dedi Magni Aufeonii Mosella, v. 189—199 (p. 15 and 44,
BScking.) Consult also v. 85 — 150 (p. 9-^12), the notice of the fish of the
Mosdle, which is not unimportant as regards natural history, and has been
niade use of by Valenciennes i and a pendant to Oppian (Bemhardy, griech.
tatt. Th. ii. S. 1049). Tbid Orthinogonia and Theriaca of .Slmilius Macer of
Verona, which were imitated from the works of the Colophonian Nicander,
Imd which have not come down to us, a]so belonged to the same dry didactic
dass of poems treating of natural productions. A natural description ot the
tenth coast of Gaul, contained in a poem by Gandins Kntilius Numatianus, a
statesman nndor Honorius, is more attractive than the Mosella of Ausonius
Rutilius, driven from Bome by the irruption' of the Barbarians, is returning to
his estates in GauL Unfortunately we possess only a fragment of the second
book of the poem which gives a narrative of his travels ; and this leaves off
tt the quarries of Carrara. Vide Rntilii Clandii Numatiani de Reditu suo (•
Boma in Oalliam Narbonensem) libri duQ, rec. A. W. Zumpt, 1840. p. xv. 81,

yi NOTES.

and 219 (with a fine nwp Ij Kiepert) ; Wenudoif, Poete U. Min. T. ▼. fi
I £. 125.

C^ p. 22.^Tu. Amu. iL 2S, 24 ; Hist. ▼. 9. Tlw ovilj fragment wlucli
we possess of the heroic poem in which Pedo AlfainofanaB, the friend of Ovid»
sung the exploits of Oermanicin, which was presenred hy the riiefcor Seneca
(Snasor. L p. 11, Bipont.)» also describes the mifortonate navigation on tiia
Amisia (Ped. AlbinoT. El^^iie, Amst. 1703, p. 172). Seneca considers tins
description of the stormy sea more picturesque than any thing which the
Roman poets had produced; remarking, however, "LatinidecIaHiatoiesiA
ooeani descriptionfi non ninus vigaerunt; nam ant tomide ecripsemnt aot
euriose." •

C") p. 22. — Curt, in Alex. Magno, vi 16 (see Broysen, Gesch. Alexanden
des Grossen, 1833, S. 265). In Lucius Annseus Seneca (duiest. Natur. UlUi
iii. c. 27—30, p. 677 — 686, ed. Lips. 1741), we find a remarkable descrip.
tion of the destruction of mankind, once pure, but subsequently defiled by sin,

by an almost universal deluge. " Cum fatalis dies dilnvii v^^erit, bis

peracto ezitio generis humana exstinctisque paiiter fens in qnamm homines
ingenia transierant." Compare the description of chaotic terrestrial ievoln»
lions in the Bhagavata-Purana, Book iii. e. 17 (Bumouf, T. i. p. 441).

p8) p. 23.— Plin. Epist. ii. 17, v. 6, ix. 7; Plin. Hist. Nat. xii. 6; HH
Gesch. der Baukunst bei den Alten, Bd. ii S. 241, 291, and 376. The viDa
Laurentina of the younger Pliny was situated near the present Tone di
Patemo, in the coast valley of La Palombara, east of Ostia (see Viaggio di
Ostia a la YiOa di PHnio, 1802, p. 9 ; and Le Lanrentin, par Haadelconrt»
1838, p. 62.) A deep feeling for nature brea]cs forth in the few lines written
by Pliny from Laurentinum to Minutius Fondanus : " Mecum tantum et com
libellis loquor. Bectam sinceramque vitam! dulce otium honestumque! 0
mare, o littus, verum secretumque (iravo'ccoy) ! quam multa invenitis, quam
multa dictatisT' (i. 9.) Hirtwas persuaded that the beginning in Italy,
in the 15th and 16th centuries, of the artificial style of gardening, which has
long been termed the French style, and contrasted with the free? jftudscsp^
gardening of the English, is to be attributed to the desire of imitatf&g what
the younger Pliny had described in his letters (Geschichte der "RAJiln^i^i^ bei
den Alten, Th. ii. S. 366).

ff) p. 24.— Plin. Epist. iii. 19 ; viu. 16.

(*^ p. 24. — Suet, in Julio Csesare, cap. 66. The lost poem of Casaf
(Iter.) described the journey to Spain, when he led his army to his hist mifr
tary exploit firom Home to Cordova, by land, in twenty-four days, aooor£i^

NOTSS* Til

to Saeiomiis> or in tweaty-feven days acoordfaig to Stnbo und Affptin. ; tlit
xemams of Fompey's party, defeated in Africa^ having assembled in Spain.

{^) p. 24.— Sil IteL Fanica, lib. iii. V. 477.

(^ p. 24.- Idem. Lib. iv. V. 848 ; lab. viii. Y, 899.

(^ p. 25.— See, on degiae poetry, Niool. Bach, In the aOg. Sdml-Zdtimg,
1829, Abth. ii. No. 134, S. 1097.

If*) p. 26.'— Minneii Felieis Oetavins, ex ne. Gfon. Roterod. 1748» oap^ 2
and 3 (p. 12—28), cap. 16—18 (p. 151—171).

(^) p. 26.— On the Death of Nancratins, about the year 857, see Baalii
Mi^ 0pp. omnia, ed. Far. 1730, T. iii. p. xlr. The Jewish Essenes, two
centuries before the Christian era^ led an anchoritic life on the western shores
of the Dead Sea, "in interconrse with nature." Fliuy says of them (▼. 15),
*'mira gens, soeia pabnarmni" The Therapentes dwelt originally more in
conventual communities, in a pleasant district near Lake Moeris (Neander,
allg< Geschichte der christL Beiigion nnd Kirche, Bd. i. Abth. i. 1842, S.
73 and 103.)

(^) p. 28.— Basilii M. Epst. zir. p. 93, Ep. eexziil p. 339. On the
beautiM letter to Gr^ry of Narianzum, and on the poetic tone of mind of
Saint Basil, see Yillemain de TMoquence chretienne dans le qnatrieme Si^e,
in his Melanges historiquea et litt^raiies, T. iii. p. 320 — 325. The Iris, on
the banks of whiah the fiimi|y of the great Basil had ancient possessions in
land, rises in Armenia, flows through Fontus, and, after mingling with the
waters of the Lycos, pours itself into the Bhiek Sea.

(*0 p. 28. — Gregorius of Nazianzum was not, however, so much charmed
with the description of the hermitage on the banks of the Iris, but that he
preferred Arianzu8,in the Tiberina Begio, though termed, witiidissatiafiietion,
by his Mend an impure fiapaBpor, See Basilii Ep. ii p. 70 ; and the Vita
Sancti Bas., p. zlvi., and lix. in the edition of 1730.

(^ p. 28. — ^Basilii Homil. in Heziem. vi., and iv. 6 (Bas. 0pp. omnia, ed.
GuL Gamier, 1839, T. i. p. 64 and 70). Con^are thoewiih the expression
of profound melancholy in the beautiM poem of Gregory of Naaianznm, enti-
tled, " On the Nature of Man.'* (Gregor. Naz. 0pp. omnia» ed. Far. 1611,
T. ii Garm. xiii p. 85).

(*) p. 29.— The quotation from Gregory of Njwa given in the text, con*
gists of separate fragments closely transkted. They wiU be found in S. Gn^^
goriiNysseni 0pp.ed.Far. 1615, T.i. p. 49 G, p. 589D, p. 210 G, p. 780 C;
T. ii. p. 860 B, p. 619 B, p. 619 D, p. 324 D. **Be thou gentle towards
the emotions of melancholy," says Thalaasius, in aphoristic si^gSy whleh

wtn idtt&nd v^iiit wnBUfOtKnt^ fJBBoBML rtAnw, cA. Pur. ISMyT^fli
p. 1180 €.)

f^ p. S9.-*See Xottmis dnyioitoiiii 0pp. cnuii^ Bur. 18SS (8vo») T.o.
p. 687 A, T. u. p. 8S1 A, and 6ftl I, T. i. p. 79. Comftn dM J<mm
JhSkvgniUt i& €^ i. ttciiMooi ds cfBMli<ni6 Muidi, fibii feptem, Yittintt Auiti.
1630, p. 192, 886, and 272 ; sad alw 6«orgii Pisidtt Mmdi optfidimi, ed.
1596, T. 867—876, 560, 988, and 1M8. TIm irarica at B«a «id of
Gregory of Naxisnsimi eari j ancrted my rtleiittkm after I begsn to aolkct
deacriptkmB of nfltares Irat I am indeMpd fiir «& tiw cxedlent ^Germtti)
tnaalatiotta from Qtegoty of KyMi» Chiyaoatom, and Tbalaariiia^ to my old
and alivsys kind aoBeagne and (Uend, M. Hase, Member of tlie lutitati^
«&d Conservajtor of the Kfafioth^ne dn Roi, at Fnia.

(*^) p. 80. — On tiie 0>Malrom TOffooeBfie, mder Pope Alennder 111^ am
ZiegeHMner, fikt Bel Ute». erdims 8. Benedieti, T. ii. p.248, ed. 1754; mi
the CouieiletFani «f 1209, and theBoB of Gregoiy IK; of the year 1281, m
Jonrdain, Recherehea crit. anr lea tradactioiiB d'Aristote, 1819, p. 20i" M,
Heavy penaneea wepa attaehad to tiie readiag of the physicel hooks of Aib*
totle. In the GoncOhmi Lateranenae of 1189 (Saeror. ConeS. novs oolhedio^
ed. Yea. 1776, T. txL p. 528), moaka were forbidden ^ exereise the ait of
medictne. Oonsott also the learned and intereatittg writing of tfw ymag
Woli^g von O^^ entitled, ''der MenflehunddiedemetttariadeNalar,*
1844, S. 10.

C^ p. 32.— Fried. Sehlegel, ther nordnche Biehtjkimst, in hia asmmlSehn
Werkeo, Bd. z. S. 71 «ad 90. I may eite frither, from the voy cari^ tiiae
of Charlemagne, the poetie deacaiption of Hie Thicargaiten at Aiz, cfltdomig
bo& woods and meadowa, whi^ k giTca in Ihe life <tf the gieai emperar,
written by Angahertiis, Abbot <rf St. Riquea. (Sea Feitt, Monam. Toll
p. 393—403).

(») p. 83.--43ei^ in Gervuras's Geachiehte der dealaeben IML, Bd. i. S.
854—^81, the eompariaon of the two epioa, the poem<of tte Nkibahiagca,
(describing the vengeance of (%zien)hi]d, the wife of Siegfried), and Ihat of
Gudmn, the danghter of King HeteL

(f*) p. 84.— On the romantie description of the grotto of the Iov«e% la thi
Tristan of Gottfriedof Stiaabaig, aee Gervimu, in the work above nteedto^
B4. i. S. 450.

^y p. 85.— Yridankea Beaeheideidieit, by 'Walhdm Grimm, 1884, S. 50,
Slid 128. AQ that refera to the German ToiOra-epoa and the Mnrnttdngera
(from p. 88 to p. 86) ia takan from a letter (tf Wilhebn Giimm to myadi

(OeL 1845)* Bi •'Mvy M Ang^o-Stton.poela.oti fhe iMdkes cf thft Rimci^
which WW tint puUidied by HiolGM, there k tiie foOowing pletsvig deacrip-
tioA of the IttAh taeeet-^'^BMn ie beawtifiil in its hnnchei: ite leafy top
neOef nrM^, aoved to ad fioo I7 the ar." The greeting of the hfjki of
dBf it «nf)le end ]»Dblex-«-'*The meMeoger of the hotd, dear to man, the
^orioiu ]ight of Godf bringing gladneee and eonfidenee to ridi and poor,
beneficent to lAr See die WiUidin (iriaajw iOer dBiitache Banen, 1821,
8. H 2S5, and 084.

n P- 86.*^acob Grimnv in ftahihart foeha, 1884, S. caeiT. (Cgmpare
alao Ghriatian Laaeen. in Mi indiachar ,A]tBithnnia]auidei Bd. i 1848.
a. 996.)

^ p. 87.— On '<iiwnOB^gewiinaneaB4iftbaOB8iaiiieaongaiandof Mae-
phenon'a Osaian in partienlar/' aee a memoir by the ingenioos tranalatraaa of
tiN» V^ik^eesie of Servia <die Uaiehthait der laedv Oaaiau'e und dee Mae-
phefBon 'adien Oaaiai's inabesondere^ fnn Tahg, 1840). The firat publication
cf OMian by Maepheraon waa in 1780. The Eingalian aonga are^ indeed,
heard in the Seottiah Highlands, aa well aa in Ireland, but they have been
narried to Scotland from Ireland, aoeovding to O'Reilly and Dnunmond.

(n p. 87.*'4«aaen, ind. Alterthmnakonde, Bd. i S. 412—415.

n P* 88.— Respecting the Indian forest-hermits, Vanaprestise (Sylncohe}
and Sramfini (a name which has been altered into Sarmani and Garmani), aee
Lassen, "denominibaa qubaa veteribns ifpeDantur Tndomm philosophi,"
in the Bhein. Museun fiir Fhilokgici, 1838, S. 178—180. Wilhehn Grimm
thinks he reoogniaea aomething of Indian coloiiring in the description of the
magic foreet in the " S(»g of Alexander," composed more than 1200 yeaip
9ff> by a priest; named Inmbiecht, in immediate imitation of a French oiigi-
naL The hero cornea to a woo4, where maidens, adorned with snpenatural
ciiBmu» quiring from large llowera, and he remains with them ao long that
both iloweiB and maidena fade away. (Compare Gervinns, Bd. i S. 282, and
Masamami's Deakmaler, Bd. i. S. 16.) These are the same as the maidens of
Edriai's oriental magic Island of YaoTac, called, in the Latin version of
Masndi, Chothbeddin poeUaa vasvakieDsea. (Humboldt, Examen crit. de la
G^Qgraphie, T. i. p. 53^

C) p. 89«— -Kalidaaa liyed at the court of Vikramaditya, abont 56 yeara
before oor era. It ia highly probable that the age of the two great heroic
poema, Ramayana and Mahabharata, is much earlier than that of the appear-
ance of Bnddha, or much earlier than the middle of the sixth century befom
our era. (Bumon^ Bhagavata-Puranak T. i p. cxl and cxviii.; Lasaen,

iaL AUttdmifauide, M. I 8. 856 tnd 492.) George FonUr, \j 6n
tnnMlrtioB of Sienrtab, «. #. 1»y Ids taitefid prewntiUoii in a GennaD gub
of an Eagliih tmmm by Sir WiliMm JoMi <1791)» eonttilHited gnit^ to
the Mflierieam for Indian poetij, wMeh then trrt diewed itsdf in Gemuaiy.
I tiloB fleaaine in leaaUing two tne diitieha of Gdtke'a^ whidi appeared in
1799 V-

" WiUsk do die Bliktite dea frOlien, die ft9M& dee apateien Jaliiea,

WiUit da ivaa reist and eatzuekt, wilht dn, ivaa aattigt and nahi^

WiDat da den Himmel, die Side mit einem Namen begrei&n;

Nenn' idi Sakontala, Didi, and so irt aBea geaagt."

The moat recent Germen tranalation of this Indian dramn is that of Otto

B^^ling^ (Benn, 1848), fam tin in^ortant original teit foond by Btodc*

(^) p. 40.«*Hambddt, on ateppes and deserto (neber Steppen and WastenX
in Hie Anaichten der Nator, 8te Ansgabe, 1826, Bd. i. S. 83—87.

^ p« 40. — ^In order to lendor more complete the small portion (^ the teit
which belongs to Indian litemtare, and to enable me to point ont^ as ia
Greek and Soman literstore, the several worka referred to, I will here intro-
doee some mannscript notices, kindly communicated to me by a distingoiahed
and philosophieal aeholar thoroughly versed in Indian poetry, Herr Theodor
Goldstneker:—

** Among an the influenoea which have affeeted the intenectoal development
of the Indian nation, the first and most important appears to me to have been
that exercised by the ridi aspect of natore in the country inhabited by them.
A profound love of nature baa been at all timea a fimdamental character of
the Indian mind. In reference to llie manner in which this feeling has mani-
fested itself, three successive epochs may be pointed out, each of which has a
determinate character, of which the foundations were deeply laid in the mode
of ]]& and tendencies of the people. A few examples may thus be suf&deiit
to indicate the activity of the Indian imagination. The Vedas mark the first
epoch of the expression of a vivid feeling for nature: we would refer in tha
Bigvedft to the sublime and simple descriptions of the dawn of day (Bigved^
Sanhitft» ed. Rosen, 1888/ Hymn. x]vi.p. 88; Hymn. xlviiL p. 92; Hymn,
xcii. p. 184; Hymn, cxiii. p. 288: see also Hof^, Ind. Gediehte, 1841,
Lese i 8. 8,) and of the " golden-handed son," (Rigveda-Sanhitft, Hymn.
xxiL p. 81 ; Hymn. xxxv. p. 65). Hie veneration of nature, eonneetad
here, aa in other nations, with an early stage of their religioas beliei^ haa ia
theVedaiapeciffiariydtteBnintftedireetiaii, being ahanya cooeaved in Hi

KOTES* S

JDOftt intimate eoonectioA ivith the ezteroal and intemal Uk of tbtOL Th«
Becond epoch is very different : in it a popnlar myihoLogf was lisniie^ lismg
for its object to mould the eontenta of the Vedfts into aahape mora eaaAf
comprehensible by an age abeady &r removed in charaofcer £rani (Jut wlueh
had given them birth, and to intoweave them with historijBal events to which
a mythical character is given. To this seetrnd ^oeh belottg the two great
heroic poems, the Bamayana and the Mahahharata; the latter had alio tfatt
additional object of rendering the &Kihmi|ia the miost influential of the foot
ancient Indian castes. The Bamayana is the older and move beautibd poem
of the two: it is more rich in natozal feeling, and has; kept more strictly on
poetic gronnB, not having been eonstrained to take up elements aUen-and
almost hostile to poetry. In both poems, nature no longer oonstitvtea^ pt in
the Yedas, the entire pictore, bnt only a portion of it. There see tw» points
which essentially distingmsh the conception of natore at the period of the
hermc poems from that which the Yedas present, indeponiifttly of the wide
dilEerence between the langoage of adoration and that of naiiative. One of
these points is the localismg of .the descariptkm. According to Willielm von
Schlegel, the first book of th^ Bamayana, or Balakanda, and the second bode,
mr Ayodhyakanda, are exampleBi see also Lassen, Ind. Alterthnmdamde,
Bd. L S. 482, on the differences between these two epics. Narrative, whe*
ther historical, legendary, or fiabolons. leads to the specification of portienlar
localities, rather than to general deso^tbns. These early epio poets, whether
Valmiki, wlio sings the exploits of Bama, or the anthars of the Mahabhamtay
named collectively, by tradition, Yyasa, all show themselveB transported, and
8S it were overpowered, by emotions connected with extonaL nature, Bama't
jonmey from Ayodhya to Dschanaka's capital ; his life in the forest ; his ex*'
pedition to< Lanka (Ceylon), where dwelt the savage Bavana, the robber of
his bride, Sita; and the hermit life of the Pandnides; all famish to the poet
the opportunity of following the bent of the Indian mind, and of blending^
with the relation of heroic deeds, the rich imagery of tropical natore. (Bama-'
yana, ed. Schlegel, lib. i. cap. 26, v. IS— 15 : lib. ii cap. 66, v. 6->ll : com*
pare Nalus, ed. Bopp, 1832, Ges. xii. Y. 1 — 10.) The othor point in which
tlie second epoch differs from that of the Yedas in regard to external nature^
is closely connected with the first, and consists in the greater riehnees of ma*
terials employed, ccmiprehending the whole of nature, — ^the heavens and the
eartli, with the world of plants and of animals in idl their luxurianee and variety*
iin4 viewed in their influence on the mind and feelings of men. In the thii<d
epofh of poetic literatuic (if we except the Puranas, which have a pactieolat

-■->j»*!»'

ML nonk

•ljMt») «A«m1 wlilv nveiiH w iisfifiM MTCf^^
fotliBB II bntd «■ antt wiwiUflo and mote lodil obaerratiim. Among tin
gM* po«M Woi#Bg to tUi q^ Ib «Im ]Marf;tt4&f7tt (w Bhsttt'ft pon),
fildA, iOn te TTiBMjm, lu» Ibr.iti MAjesllkt Ofloite nd adiv&taieior
Bmm^ ■adiB iiUeli ftw tooriptfam* «r ft fbi««l Ulb ^nri^
m lod of its kwnlafta ihom» and of the taeddflg «f tlio dkjrti Clgibii
(bnk^, OQoar «ieee«i«B]f« (BkiMi-Uty^ «& Ode. P. i. canto vii. > 432;
ODiito SL p^ 71ft; caato iL p. 814. Compare abo fidiola, Pkof. in Bidi-
ftU, foBf CkMiga d«a Bliitti.Ubi7a» 1«S7» S. 1--18.) I would abo icfertD
m agmeabk dMcri^tkn of tha difoeat periods Of tin digr in Mi^^
ffi«yaJabdha> and to the Naiwlada twoharita tf Sri Haracha. Li Hn Wt-
named poem, howe7er» in tfce itotj of Ndtn and Damayanti, the ezpnanon
ol tiie lading fnr axtenial natore paran into a Tagoe ezaggentioQ, iriuek
eoufcrfeBts with the noUa aaplioity of tie Raawyana> where Yisvamitia ledb
hia papa to the thana off tiie Sona. (Sin^ahdha, ed. Cahs. p. 298 and S78;
oompaDB Schjita, lanf Ge8.di8 Bhatti.kftvy% 8, 85«^-«8; fftMtadii^U^ba^k,
ed. Gate. P. 1, ▼. 77--129; Baniajan% ad. €dikgtl» lih. 1, o^. 85, t.
1$->18.) KaHdaaa, the oeUbrated anOior 4it Saoontala, tepnata^ wiOii
maitar*! hand, the iidhaBnoe which the aipeet of natan eamiata ontiie nnnfc
and feeUngi of kven. The forcit ■oeneponrtMyedhy himlnthe dnnaacf
VHctaina and VtwA ia ona of the iaait poatii oraaiHons of any poM.
(Vantnomai»ed.GalB.1880,p. 71; aea tin Sa§^ tnnddion in IVIboBTs
Saket Speeitteai of the Thaaboof the Hindtt, Gde. 1827, VQLfLp.68.)
iithapeanof*'nteSea8aM»'' I wodd paHiaakriy Kfer to ^e ndny aeaHB
and to that of spring <Biinaaah«a» ed. BoUen, 1840, p. 11*^18, ad
87^-46, a 8&--88, and S. 107<-114, of B<ddeii'9 translation). In Ob
** CkMid Mawcpgor," also hy KaUdasa, the infloenee of ettecnal nslna oa
hnman feding ia also the leiding snl^jeOt of the eomposilMm. ^na pom
^ Mc|ghadai% or doad Ifiessenger, whldi has Veen edited hy Oildemditff
and ttandatod hoth by WiIboh and by Ch&j) describes i^ grief of an ede
m. the moimtain Bamagiii, longhig for' Oa presence of his bdoved from
vhomhaissepanted: he eatraats a passing eknid to oonvey to her tidiiigi
of his sQRows) hedBBerib«stothedimdthepflltiiwhichitmn8tpiiisiie,anl
paints <he hindscape as refleeted in a mind agitated with deep eoiotioBL
ijnong the treasures which the Indian poetry of the third period owes to thi
iaflnenee of natore on the national mind, the QitBgavinda of Dsdtayadsrs
deser^ea the highest praise. <B&ckert, in the Zeitsduift fQr die Cnndedei
lliargsnhpidM* Bd. i. 1887, 8. 189^178; Gitagomda Jayadeva posM

KOOS. Ali

inaSri toamilyp«iin» e4. Chr. Immm, 1M6.) Wis poeseu • nnrterfy xnetei-
etd tnuulation by Backert of this poem, whidirii one of tiie most pleaamg
wdafcikeanBetitaeeiMolthdMOifcdiffiMltmlln vrhsAt of Indua fiten-
.toie. Tho tmiiUitioii mden tlie qpiiii of the orighnl with adattraUe idb-
.tfly, and pnsesto noonocptioa of natwo te mtiBUiAe truth of iriikh OTimidte^
«fery p«rt of tbis grest eofiDfontioii*

C) p. Al.-'-^ooniil of tiw Bo|al Qeo^. Soe. of IiODdon, YoL x. IMl,
y. 9*-8; RSekeii Utktsam Umn'B, 8. S«l.

(M) p, 41.^-^<^G6&o im OmmuaAtr warn wert-ostliAen Hbna : BcL vL
182g, S. 78, 78, asd 111, of ki»ivoifa.

(«) p. 42.— YiiUle Lraw dit BeH> piiUie par JbIm MoU, T. i 1888,

p. 487.

C^ p. 42.— Joi. von HamnNr, Geseh. dor sohiHieii Redfekmute PenieiiB,
1818, S. 98 (Bwhadfiddm lawon, iriiolivod m tbe ISth eentmry, bt wBoie
foeni on tho SchedMihai lonte liafo dttoovend a zemarkaiUe aUfuiost to ti»
vntaal attvaetton of tke beareidy bodies j S. 186 (Daehckleddin Rami, tlie
M3Fiiti4; & 859 (Dsdadaladdm AlMbd); S. 408 (Beiri, who came forward
at the eoart^of Akbar. as adefender of the xdigioii of Bnlmi% and in whom
Ghamla there hreains n Isdiaii ttodsmeBS of fisetbif^.

(*0 p* 42.?***Mfi^ oonwB on wheft tiie iiik4Mfttie of hmrn is over-
^uned," is the tastetesa expression of Chodschah AMidlah Wasso^ a poet,
^ho has, however, the merit of hsEfing been the first to deseiibe the grest
aataKmomical observatory of Mera^ia, with its lefiky gDomon. Hflali, of Astei^
sind, makes the disk of the moon g^ wUh heat, and eA tiie evening dew
*the sweat of the moon." (Jos. vob. Hammer, 8. 247 and 8f 1.)

(^ p. 48.— Tniija or Turan are names of which the derivation is still
undiscovered. Bnmonf (Yaena, T. i. p. 427--480) has acutely odled attend
U«m in referenee to them to the Baetriaa Satrapy cf Tmina or Turiva men-
tioned in Straho (xi. 11, 8, peg. 517, hit.): Bn 13ieil and Chroakard, however,
Xh. ii. SL 410) propose to read Tapyria.

(^ p. 42.-«Uebcr ein fanisobes l^s^ Jaoob Chrimm, 1845, S. 5.

C^ p. 46.*-"I have followed in ^ FiNdms the exeeBent tranEAatien of
Hoses Mendelsohn (see his Gesammelte Sdbriften, Bd; tl S. 220, 288, and
280). Noble after-echoes of the andent Hebrew poetry are found in Ihe
11th century in the hymns '<rf the Spomdi synagogoe poet, Salomo ben Jdn-
dah Gabntd: they also contain a poetie paraphrase of the pseodo-Aristotetkat
book, De Mundo. Vide die religifise Poesie der Joden in Spamen^ hy
Michael Sachs, 1845, S. 7» W, and 229. Ostdies drnmi from nature, and

Sir KOTBS.

iUn (tf Tigonr aad gnnftenr, «• fonod in the writiagt of Xotebea Jakob \m
Em (S. 69. 77, and 285).

n p. 47.— I haw tak0D fhc pHHSa m tbs book of Job fimmthetav.
ktioa and expoaitioa of Umbrdt (1824)» S. izix.— ifiL ml 990-ail
(Coofliilt genenUj Gcaeoios, Gcschichte der hebr. Spnebo.iud Schrilt, S. 8S;
and Jobi aiitiqiiiflaimi camiinis behr. Baton atque ▼irtntes, ad. ilgen, p. 28.)
Tbe longest and moat ehanetariatie daaaiiptioa of an animal whick we sMet
witb in the book of Job, ia that of the croeodiJe (xl. 25 — xli. 26), and yet it
eontainaoaaoftheevideneeaof thewiiter having been himaelf a natin U
Palestine, Umbreit, S. xli. & 808. As the river-hone of tha Nile and tbe
erooodile weie foimerij foond throoghoot the whole Delta of tlM Nile, it it
not aniprising that the knowledge of animals of such strange and pecoliaK
farm should have spread into the neighbouring country of Palestine.

C^ p. 48.— Gothe im Commentar sum weat-ostlichen IHvan, S. 8.

P) p. 48.— Antar, a Bedouin lomaneai transUted from the Arabic bjr
Terrick Hamilton, Vol. i p. xxvi. ^ Hammer, in the Wiener Jahrbiichem der
litteratur, Bd. vl 1819, S. 229 , Roaenmuller, in tl|e Charakteien der vo^
oehmsten Dicbter aUer Nationoa, Bd. v. (1798) S. 251.

(^*) p. 49.^Antan. cum sdiol. Sonaenii, ed. MenO. 1816, t. IS.
. iP) p. 49.— Amrulkeisi MoaUakat, ed. £. G. Henitenbeig, 1883; Ha-
maaa, ed. Fieytag, P. i. 1828, lib. vii. p. 785. Sea dso in the pleauis
work, entitled, '* Amrilkais, the Poet and King," translated by Pr. fiuckert^
1848, pp. 29 and 62, where southern showers are twiise described with ex-
eeeding truth to nature. The royal poet visited the court of the Emperor
Juatinian several years before the birth of Mahommed, for the purpose of
obtaining fiwiffM>»ir«^ against his enemies. See Le Biwan d*Amn> 'Ikau^ as
^nryp^cn*^ d'une traduction par le Baron MacGuckin de Slane, 1837, p. HI.

C^ p. 49.— 'Nabeghah Dhobyani, m Silvestre de Sacy*s Chrestom. arab^
1806, T. lii. p. 47. On the early Arabian hterature generally, see Weil's
Poet. Litteratur der Araber vor Mohammed, 1837, S. 15 and 90, as well ss
Freytag^ Darstellung der arabischeu Verskunst, 1830, S. 872—392. We
may soon expect a truly fine and complete version of the Arabian poetry coo-
nected with imtuie m the writings ol Hamasa Irom our great poet Fnednch
Eiickert.

P) p. 49.— HamasBB Carmina, ed. Preytag. P. i. 1828, p. 788. "• Hoa
tuishes," it is said in page 796, ** the chapter oa travel and aieepinesa."

fP) p. 51.— Dante, Purgatorio^ canto i. v. 115;
** V alba nnceva T qi» nattutioa

J

KOTBS. Xf

Che ftigia nmanzi, A cihe di lontano

Gonobbi il iremolar de la marina*'..,***
^ p. 51.«-Porg. canto v., ▼. 109— 127 1

** Ben sai come nell' aer a raoec^giie

Qaell' nmido vapor, che in acqaa riedib

Tosto che sale, dove 1 freddo il eoglio''.....^
(^ p. 51.— Poig. canto zxriii ▼. l<-~84.
^) p. 51.— FSttad. ento zxx. v. 61—69

** S vidi Inme in foima di riviera

Folvido di ficdgore intra duo rive

Bipinte di mirabil primavera.

Di tal fiumana nsdan fiiviUe viv^

S d' ogni parte si mettean ne* fior^ " '

Qnasi robin, che oro circonscriv^

r u.
Bn come, inebriate dagli odori,

Baprofondavan se nel miro gurge^

S 8* una entrava, im* altia n' naeia fttori."

rdo not refer to the Orazomes of the Vita Noova, becBDae the eamiftuhmm

and images which they contain do not belong to the purely natural raai^e o£

ttarestxial phsenomena.

. C^ P* ^^* — I would recal Boiardo's sonnet commencing^

** Ombrosa selva, che il mio dnolo ascolti,**
and the fine stanzas of Vittoria Colonna, which begin, ^

" Qnaado miro la terra omata e beOi^
Bi mille vaghi ed odorati fiori."
A beautiful and very characteristic natural description of the country seat of
Fracastoro on the hill of Incassi (Mons Caphius), near Verona, is given by
that distinguished doctor in medicine, mathematician, and poet, in his "Nan
gqins de poetica dialogns" (Hieron. Fracastorii 0pp. 1591, P. i. p. 831-«
826). See also in a didactic poem, Ub. ii. v. 208 — 219 (0pp. p. 636), the
pleasing passage on the culture of the lemon in Italy. I miss with astonish*
ment any expression of feeling connected with the aspect of nature in tht
letters of Petrarch, either when, in 1345, (three years, therefore, before tha
dfeath of Laura), he attempted the ascent of Mont Ventour from Yauduse,
hoping and longing to behold irom its summit a part of his native land ; or,
when he visited the gulf of Baise, or the banks of the Bhiue to Cologne.
Uis mind was occupied by the classical remembrauces of Cicero and tha

XVI VODBBk

Boman pocti, or bj fht twtfoM tf Us aaeetie ilelindldlj, rsther tha&lif
Rurronndiiig natare. (Vid. Fetnidkn Epitt. de nibw ftiaffiaribas, lib. ir. I ;
T. 8 and 4: pag. 110, 156, and 161, ed. LagSm, 1601). Ifin^ 1i0w«i«i;
an exceedingly pictoresqna daKriptkm of a greal tannpeat ivMch Petrardi
observed near Naples k 1848 (lib. ▼. 5, p. 166) : b«fc it is a solilaiy instaaoe.

n p. 54.— 'Hnmboldt, Szamen critifQe da Fbialoire de h G^ogn^iie da
nooYeatt Ck>ntinent, T. m. p. 227«-S48.

(M) p. 55.— Kofinos» Bd. i 8. 206 and 460 (IB^^traiialalioiu vdLi
pp. 272 Note 820).

n p. 56.— Joumal of Colnmbns onbji first vejago (Oet. 20, 1492; Nor.
25—20; Dec. 7—16; Dec. 21); also bi« letter to Dofin Maria deGnsnan, ama
del Principe D. Jnan, Dec 1500. in Navarrete, ColeQeion delos Yiages tp^
Udiron por mar los Espafioles, T. i p. 48, 65, 72, 82, 92, 100, and 266.

f) p. 56.— Navarrete, Coleocion de los Yiages, T. i p. 308—804 (Caiti
del Ahnirante a los Reyes escrita en Jamaica a 7 de Jnlio^ 1508); Hmnbdldt^
Sxamen crit. T. iii p. 231—286.

P) p. 56. — ^Tasso, canto zvi stanze 9—16.

n p. 57.— See Friedricb Scbl^;efs sammfl. "WeAe, Bd. 3. S. 96; anl
on the disturbing mythological dualism, and the mixture of antiqne fiUe wJA
Christian contemplations, see Bd. z. S. 84. Camoens has tried, in ftanns
which have not been sufficiently attended to (82 — 84), to justify Una mythth
logical dualism. Tethys avows, in a somewhat nmve muaa, M in vcfsei ,
which are a noble flight of poetry, ** that she hasd^ Saturn, Jupiter, and all
the host * gods, are vain f&blea, bom to mortals by tiind ddiatoa, aftl
serving only to embel^ the poet*8 song—*" A Sanata Ihrovidenda que em
Jupiter aqni se representa."

n p. 57.— Os Lusiadas de Gamoes, canto i est. 10 ; eanto vi eat. 71*"-*^
See also tiie comparison in the fine description ci a tempest laging in »lDral»
canto i. est. 85.

(^ p, 58.-— The fire of St. Efano : "o hone vivo que a maritima gentetm
por santo, em tempo de tormentai'* (Canto ▼. est. 18). One flame, the HelflBS
of the Greek marines, brings misfortune (Plin. ii. 37) ; two flames, OMlor
and Pollux, appearing with a rustling sound, ''like the fluttering wings of
birds," are good pmens (Stob. £clog. Phys. i. p. 514 ; Seneca, Nat Qasst
L 1). On the eminently graphical character of Camoens* deseriptioiBe ef
nature, and the peculiar manner in which their subjects are brought as it wot
visibly before the mind's eye, see the great Paris edition of 1818» in tfteTiii
iaCamoes, by pom Joze Maria de Souza. p. eS.

iroT£s, xvii

(") p, 68.-^<3ompaie tlie waterspout in Canto v. est. 19 — 22,witlitheal80
highly poetic and fiuthful description of Lacretius, vi. 423^442. On the
fresh water, wliich, towards the close of the phsenomenon, fidls apparently fix>Bi
the upper part of the column of water, see Ogden on Waterspouts (from Ob-
servations made in 1820, during a voyage from Havannah to Norfolk), in
Silhman's American Journal of Science^ Vol. xdx. 1886, p. 254 — 260.

C^ p. 68.-^Canto iii. est. 7-*21, of the text of Oamoens in the editio
prinoeps of 1572, which has been given afresh in the excdlent and splendid
edition of Dom Joze Maria de Souza-Botelho (Paris, 1818). In the German
quotations I have usuaUy followed the translation of Dbnner (1883). The
principsd aim of the Lusiad of Gamoens is the honour and glory of his nation*
Would it not be a monument, well worthy of his fame, if a hall were constructed
in lisbonk after the noble examples of the halls of Schiller and Gothe in the
Grand Bucal palace of Weimar, and if the twelve grand compositions of my
deceased friend Gerard, which adorn the Souza edition, were executed in
large dimensions, in fresco, on weU lit walls ? The dream of the king Dom
Manoel, in which tiie rivers Indus and Ganges appear to him, the Giant
Adamastor hove^g over the Cape of Good Hope (" Eu son aquelle occulto e
grande Cabo, Aquem chamais vos ontros Tormentorio")> the murder of Ifies
de Castro, and the lovely Ilha de Venus, would i^ have the finest effect.

(®) p. 58. — Canto x. est. 79—90. Camoens, like Vespucci, terms the
part of the heayens nearest to the southern pole, poor in stars (Canto v. est. 14).
He is also acquainted with the ice of the southern seas (Canto v. est. 27).

(»*) p. 69.— Canto x. est. 91—141.

(K) p. 59.— Canto ix. est. 51—63. (Consult Ludwig Kriegk, Schriften
zur allgemeinen Erdkunde, 1840, S. 338.) The whole Ilha de Venus is an
allegorical fable, as is clearly indicated in Est. 89 ; but the beginning of the
relation of Dom Manoel's dream depicts an Indian mountain and forest dis-
trict (Canto iv. est. 70).

(••) p. 60. — Pondness for the old literature of Spain, and for the enchanting
region in which the Araucana of Alonso de ErciUa y Zufiiga was composed,
has led me to read conscientiously through the whole of this poem of 22000
lines on two occasions, once in Peru, and again very recently in Paris, when»
hf the kindness of a learned traveller, M. Temaux Compans, I recdyed a very
acarce book, printed in 1596, at Lima, and containing the nineteen cantos of
the Araueo domado compuesto por el Licenciado Pedro de Ona natural de lot
Infantes de Engol en Chile. Of the epic poem of Ercilla, in which Voltaire
sees an Iliad, and Sismondi a newspaper in rhyme, the first fifteen cantos were

vol., XI, 8 c

ccD^posed IwAween 1555 and 1563, and were pnblidied in 1569; fhelito
cantos were first printed in 1590, only six years before the misefaUe poem d
Pedro de Ofia> which bears the same title as one of the master works of Lope
de Vega> in which the Cadque Caupoiicaa is the piindipaL peraonage. finib
is naive and tme-hearted ; espeeially in tiioee parts of his oompositiQm wluck
he wrote in the field, mostly on bark of trees and skins of beasts fi>r waat of
piper. The description oif his pov4srty, and -of the ingratitodfi which he eipe-
lienced at the coort of King f hilip« is extremely touduiig, paiticuhu^ it tin
dose of the 37th canto:

*'Climas pass^ mnd^ ooQgUia0ioiie%

Golfos inavegables navegando,

Estendiendo Senor, Yaestra corauft

Hasta k anstral frigida sona."
"The flower of my life is past; late instrocted, I will nnoimeeeartiily thhi^i^
weep, and no longer sing." The natural desdiptions of the garden of the
aoroerer, of the tempest raised by Eponaraon, «nd of the ooean (P. i. p. 80,
135, and 173 ; F. ii. p. 130 and 161, in the edition of 17d3), are cold inl
lifeless: geographical raters of words are aocumnlated in sneh maoiia;
that, in Canto zzvii., twenty-seven proper names foUow each other in iBUQe&te
sncoession in a single stanza of eight lines. Fart II. of the Aiaucana is not
by Ercilla, but is a eontinuation, in twenty cantos, by Diego de SantLstenn
Osorio, appended to the thirty-seven cantos of Erdlla.

(^ p. 60. — In the Bomancero de Romances cabaUeresoo 6 historioos ordB*
nado, por D. Angnstin Duran, P. L p. 189, and P. iL p. 237* see the fine
strophes commencing " Yba dedinando el dia"— *' Sn ooiao y ligeros horas"—
and on the flight of King Boderick, beginning

" Qoando las pintadas aves

Mudas estan y la tiem

Atenta esucha los rios."
(^ p. 60. — ^Fray Luis de Leon, Obras propriaa y tradncdcmes, dedicadas s
Don Pedro Portocarero, 1681, p. 120 : Noche serena. A deep feeling of
nature also reveals itself at times in the ancient mystic poetry of the Spaniards
(Fray Luis de Granada, Santa Teresa de Jesus, Melon de Ghaide) ; but the
natural pictures are usually only the external veil, symbolising ideal contem-
plations.

(«0 p. 61.— Calderon, in the " Steadfast Prince :'* on the approach of the
Spanish fleet, Act i. scene 1 ; and on the sovereignty of the wild beasts ia
the forest, Act iii. scene 2,

-KOTEtS. 3aX

a^ p. 62.*<-13ie passages in the text relating to Galderon and Shakspeare,
wbicli are distingDislied by marks of quotation, are taken from tmpublished
letters, addressed 40 myself, by Ladwig Tieck.

(y^) p. 66.-— The works referred to were published in the following order
of time : — Jean Jacques Rousseau, NoaveUe H^oise, 1759 ; Buffon, Epoqnei
de la Nature, 1778, but his Hiatoire naturelle, 1749—1767 ; Bemardin da
St.-Fienre, Etudes de la Nature, 1784, Paul et Yirginie, 1788, Chanmi^re
Indieime, 1791; George Forster, Beise nadi der Sudsee, 1777, Eleii^
Schriilen, 1794. More than half a century before the publication of th«
Nouvelle H^ise, Madame de Seyigne had already manifested, in her diaiming
Letters, a vivid sense of natural beauty, such as can rarely be laraced in Uie age
of Louis XIV. See the fine natural descriptions in the letters of April 20,
May 31, August 15, September 16, and November 6, 1671, and October 28
and December 28, 1689 (Aubenas, Gist. 4e Madame de Sevigne, 1842, p.
201 and 427). I have refiorred in the text to the old German poet, Paul
Hemming, who, from 1683 to 1689, accompanied Adam Olearius on his
journeys to Muscovy and to Persia, because, according to the autiiority of my
mend Yamhagen von Ense (Biographische Denkw. Bd. iv. S. 4, 75, and 129),
" Flemining's oompoeltions are 'Characterised by a fresh and healthful vigour,"
aud because his images drawn from external nature are tender and frdl of
life.

C«i) p. 68,— Letter of the Admiral from Jamaica, July 7, 1603 : •♦El
mundo es poco ; digo que el mundo uo es tan grande oomo dice el vulgo"
(Navarrete, Coleodon de Yiages esp. T. i. p. 300).

0®) p. 70.— See Journal and Remarks, by Charles Darwin, 1882—1886,
in the Narrative of the Yoyages of the Adventure and Beagle, Yol. iii. p.
479^90, where an exceedingly beautiful description of Tahiti is given.

C^) p. 70. — On George Eorster's merit as a man and a writer, see Ger-
vinus, Gesch. der poet. National-Litteratur derDeutschen, Th. t. S. 390 — 392.

0<^) p. 71.— Ireytag's Darstellnng der arabisehen Yerskunst, 1830, S. 402.

m p. 76,— Herod, iv. 88.

0^ p. 75.-^A portion of the works of Polygnotns and Mikon (the paint-
ing of the battle of Marathon in the Pokile at Athens) might still be seen,
according to the testimony of Himerius, at the end of the fourth century (of
our era), or 850 years after their execution (Letronne, Lettres sur la Peintust
historique murale, 1835, p. 202 and 453).

(^^ p. 76.— Philostratomm Imagines, ed.. Jacobs et Welcker, 1825, p. 79
H^d 485. Both the learned editors defend, against former suspicions, th«

authenticHj of the deicriptifm of the ptiiitingt in the amaent KeapoBtiB
Finacothek (Jaoobs^ p. xvii. and xln. ; Wdcker, p. ly. and zlvi). (Hbid
Muller sappoaes that Fhiloatratiu's picture of the ialanda (li. 17)« aa wdi ai
that of the nunrah district (L 9), of the Boaphoma, and of the fiaharmen G- IS
and 1 3), had much resemblance in their manner of representation to the mosak
of Fdestrina. Flato, in the introdnctory part of Critias (p. 107)» mentiooi
landscape painting aa representing moontains, riyers, and fbocesta.

0**) p. 76. — ^Partioolariy through Agaiharcoa, or at least according to the
rules laid down by him. Aristot. Poet. iy. 16 ; Yitmy. lib. y. o^^ 7> lib.
vii. in Pnef. (ed. Alois Maxinius, 1836, T. i. p. 292, T. iL p. 56) ; compaie
Letronne's work, before cited, p. 271 — 280.

C^^ p. 76.--On "Objecto of IUiopographia»" yide Wdcker ad Phikstr.
Imag. p. 397.

("^) p. 76.--Titmy. lab. Yii. eap. 5 fT. n. p. 91).

(ii>) p. 76.— Hirt, Gesch. der bildenden Kiinste bei den Alten, 1833, &
332 \ Letronne, p. 262 and 468.

P^") p. 76.— Lndius qoi prImnsC?) inatituit amiwiiBiiimam parieborm pieto*
i^mi (Plin. zxzy. 10). The topiaiia opera of Fliny, and yarietatea topionm
of Yitmvins, wore small landscs^ deooratiye paintinga. The passage of
Kalidasa is in the 6th act of Sacontala.

("^) p. 77.— Ot&ied Miiller, ArcluU>logie der Kunst, 1880, S. 609. Having
before spoken in the text of the paintings found in Pompeii and HerenlaneDm
as being but little allied to nature in her freedom, I must here notice some
exceptions, which may be considered strictly aa landsci^es in the modem
sense of the word. See Pitture d' Eroolano, VoL ii. tab. 45, YoL iii. tah
53 ; and, as backgrounds in charming historical eompositions, tab. 61, 62, sod
63, Yd. iy. I do not refer to the remarkable representation in the Monumeoti
deli' Institute di CoirispondeDza Archeolpgica, YoL iii. tab. 9, because its
genuine antiquity is considered doubtful by an archseologist of much acumen,
Baoul Bochetta.

C'^) P* 77.~'Against the supposition maintained by Du Thefl (Voyage oi
Italic, par TAbbe Barth^emy, p. 284) of Pompeii haying still existed is
splendour under Adrian, and not haying been completely destroyed until thB
end of the fifth century, see Adolph yon Hoff, Geschichte der Yeifandenmge&
der Erdoberflaohe, Th. ii. 1824, S. 195—199.

0*0 p. 78.— See Waagen, Kunstwerlce und Kunstler in England und Piaiis»
Th. iii. 1839, S. 195—201; and particularly S. 217—224, where he descsibai
the celebrated Psalter of the Paris Biblioth^ue (of the tenth century), which

NOTES. XXI

■liewft liow long the " antiqite mode of eompositioii" nudutniiied iUelf in Con*
otantmople. I was indebted, at the time of my pablic lectures iu 1828, to
the kind and Tahiable eommnnications of this prafoond oonnoiflsear of art
Q^ofeflsor Waagen, Diiector of the Galleiy of PaintingB of my . native ei^),
tat interesting notices on. the history of art after the time of the Boman
empire. What I afterwards wrote on the gradial deTdopment at landacapa
painting, I commnnicated in the winter of 1885, in Dresden, to the d^rtm*
goished and lamented anthor of the Italieniichen Eorsehnngen, Baron von
Bnmohr; and I received from him a great nnmber of historical iHastrations,
which he gsve me permission to publish entire in case tiie form ol my work
should pennit.

(^?) P* 78.--Waagen, in the work above leferred to, Th. i. 1837, S. 59 ;
Th. iu. 1839, S. 352—359.

0^ P* 79.— "Already Pintoriochio. painted rich and well-composed knd*
•capes in the Belvidere ot the Vatican as ind^endent decorations. He
influenced Baphad, in whose paintings many lawkcape peemUaritiet cannot be
traced to Peragino. In Pinturiechio and his friends we also akeady find those
lingular pointed forms of mountains which, in your lectures, yon were inclined
to derive firom the lyralese dolomitie oonea, which Leopold von Bueh has
rendered so celebrated, and by wUdi travelling artists might have become
impressed in the transit between Italy and Germany. I rather beUeve that
these conical forms in the eariiest Italian landscapes must be r^;arded either
■B very old conventional mountain forms, in antique bas-relieft and moeaio
works, or as unsldUully foreshortened views of Soracte and -similarly isolated
mountains in the Campagna of Home" (from a letter addressed to me by Carl
Priedrich von Rranohr, in October 1882). To indicate more precisely the
conical and pointed mountains which are here in question, I recal the foncifiil
landscape which forms the background in Leonardo da Vinci's nnivoraally
admired picture of Mona Lisa (the wife of Francesco del Giooondo). Among
llie artists of the Flemiah school, who more particohirly fiormed landseape
Into a separate branch, we should name further Patenier's successor, Herry de
Bles, named Civetta from his animal monogram, and subsequently the
brothers Matthew and Paul Bril, who, during their sqjoum in Bome, produced
A strong impression in fovour of this particular branch of art. In Germany,
Albrecht Altdorfer, Durer's scholar, practised landscape painting even some-
what earlier and more sucoessfiiUy than Patenier.

Q^ p. 80. — ^Painted for the church of San Giovanni e Paolo at V^ce.

a^ p. 81.— Wilhelm voa Humboldt, gesammdte Werke, Bd. iv. S. 87.

Zm HOIBS*

Goniptre abo, on the different gndttiont of th6 fifb of naitizK, and on tiie toM
of mind and feeUng awakened by landaeape, Oanis, in Ids ittteiesting kttos
•n landaeape pointing (Briefta iLber die Landadnftnalerei, 18SI, S. 4S).

C") p. 81.— We find eoneentrafted in the seventeenth eentoiy t&e woifa d
Xohmin Brengliel, 1569 — 1625 ; Rabens, 1977-*^1640 ; BomeiiiddBO,
1581^1641 ; Flimppe do Champoigne, 1602^1^74 ; Kieolaa Pefon^
15MH-It(B5 ; Gaspar Fonaaln (Poghet), 1613^1675 ; Chnde Lamme
I0e0--1682; AlbertOuyp, 1606—1672; JanBMh, 1610—1650; Salvatnr
Baea» 161»— 1678; Evodingen, 1621—1676; Mkolans Bo^em, 162^—
1688 : Simnovelt, 1620—1690 ; Bnjadael, 1685—1681 ; Mmdeilioot
Hobbeina» Jan Wynanta, Adriaen van de Ye]de» 1689 — 1672 ; GbttDujai^

1644—1687.

0^ p. 81. — ^An old pictnreof Ginta da Con^^Iiaiio, of the sdi^ool of Bdlaw
(Dresdncr Oaflerie, 1885, No. 40), has aome extnunrdinanly fimciM nspiescn-
taition» of date pafana with a biob in the midfle of the kafy erown«

C^ p. 82.— Dresdner Gallerie, No. 917.

C*) p. 88.— Trau Poet» or Poost» was bom at Hailem, in 1620, fitd 9ki
tiiere in 1680. Hia brotiier Bkewise aecompanied Coont Manrice of Nassaa
la architect. Of the peintinga, aome representing lite bania of tiie Amaioin
are to be seen in the pieture gaUery at Sdhkisheiia, and otliera at Bering
Hanover, and Fragae: Tlie engravings ^ Bariios, Heise d^ Frin^en Monts
von Naasan, and in Uie royal etHAtd&fm of 6opperpkte prints at Berlkk) e^
disnce a fine sense of natural ehaiacter in Hie form of llie coast, thi^ shape and
tatore of the ground, asid the aspect of vegetation, as di^hiyed in musaes^
eaetoaes, palms, diHerent species of ficos with boaid-like ezcieacences aft fha
foot of the stcotn, rhiao^ooras, and arborescent grasses. The pictareaqfad
feazyian series of views tenninates singularly enough m&. a German icuntof
pineaatos sunonnding the casfje of DiBenbnrg (Plate Iv.) The remark in tiiaf
text (p. 82>, on the infinence which the estaliliBhment of botanic gardens in
ITj^ser Ital^, towards the middle of the SEzteenUi century, may have eienisef
<ni tba ihowleiD^ of the physiognoniy ti tropical forms of vegetation, indnafes
me to reeal in tins note thst^ in the tldiieentb eentory, Albeftna Minnas, who
'^as equally setive and infinentnl in promoting natoral knowledge sod tha
atody of the AjisCoteBan phflosi^hy, poaseased a ho&onse is the eonvQit of
tile Dominicans at Cologne. This celebrated man, who had already £dlfiS
under the suspicion of sorcery on account of his speaking machine^ entertained
the King of the Romans, Wilhehn of Holhind, on the 6ih of Jannaiy, 1249/in
a large ^nce in the convent-garden, where he kept np an agreeable warmth, and

freserred fruit trees md plants in flower tbrangliont the wmtear. We find tlie
aoeoiuit of this baaqmet exaggerated into a tale of wonder in the Chroniea
Joannis de Beha, written in the middle of the 14th century (Baka et Heda de
jBpiseopas lJltrijeetenis> zecogn. ab^ Am. Bnebelie, 1648, p» 79; Jourdain,
Becherches oritiqiies sor TAga des Traductiona d'Axistote^ 1819, p. 8dl t
Buble» Geseh. der Phihwophie^ Th, y. S. 206). Althoi^ aome laoaina dia*
eorered in the exeayati^na at Yosapm shew thttt the aneieiita made aaa of
^paai^ «f glain» yet nothing haa yet heeu loond to indicate tfce use of ghiss or
tovBg honaea in aneiemt hoitioQUarB. The oofoduetioii of hieat by the eaii«
dada in hatha nj^thave kd te an aaaa^e&ieBt of artificially warmed ^hcea
far grsowiag or forattg itots^. bivt the Aoitneaa of the Gre^ and Itatioi
winiera no doubt rendered aecik aiamigemQaita leaa neaeaaaiy. The Adonia
gai:dena (w^woi AMk'et), ao indtcaUve of the mitfimy of the festival ol
Adonis, consisted, according to B6chh» of plants in small pots, whidi w«ie
lto. thiubt inteoded to tepxeseot the gaidm whar& Aphrodite and Adonn met.
Adonis was the symbol of the qnicldy fkidmg flower of youfk^-of all that
floniishes Uizmnantly and perishes rapidly; aed the ftstkala whkih bore ha
naaM, tiie cekbiation of which waa accempamed by the lammtationa ol
women, were amongst those in which the ancients had reference to the decaa^
of nature. I have spoken in the text of hothouse plents aa eontrasted with
those which grow naturally; the ancienta used the term "Adoms-gardena"
jnoverbiaUy^ to express something whklk hnd sprung vig ta$idly> but gaye no
promise ol liall matoxity or aobstaiiitial duration. 13ie plant^^ which were not
maoiy cdoqrcii flowers, b«t lettnoa, feimel^ bfldey, and whea^ were not ibxeed
in winter, bnt in summer, being made to grow 1^ artifleiat meana in an nn^
lunaUy short space ai im% vis. ia eight da^e. Cieozet (Symbolik und
Hytholegie. 1841, Th. a. S. 427, 480, 479, and 481) siqiposes that the
gEOwUi of the plentft of the Adonia gardeil was accetenitei by the applicatioDi
boIlL of itrtHig natural and astral beat in thff foom in whick they were
]daced^ The gardetf of the DoniniOBil conmitf at Celagiia recall Ihe Green*
1kb4 9) tcamtaat ol Si Thamai^ where the garden waa kift fi»e from anonr
during the winter, bebig eonatantiiy wsailed by^ natual hot ipidngB, as is told
by the brethera Zeni, in ,tbe aoeomit of their tnwels <1888«-»<1404), thfi
geogrqphical loealify of which is, however, very preblemaAacal. (Compaite
2urla> Viaggiatori VeueziaBi, T. ii p. 68-^69; and Hntebddt^ Examea
fiituiue de THist. de la Geogtaphie^ T. ii. p. 137.) Begukv hothouses seem
|o have been of very late introdtfitioB in our botanic gardens. Bqte pine-
apples were first obtained at the Qid of the seventeenth century (Bec]ananB»

Ctoidiiehto dor Erfindimgeii, Bd. iv. S. 387) ; md Ltnnaeiis even ttseits, f«
tlie Mum GattartixDm tann» Haitecampi that fhe fint banana wMchflowcrd
ift Europe was at Vienna^ m the garden of ]Moee Bogene, in 1781.

(^) p. 88.-«Theae viewa of trepieaL vegetation, iUiutnitive of the "phy-
aiognomyof plaDtB»'^ lorm, in the Royal Mnaenm at Berlin (in the d^artment
«f miniatarea, drawings, and engravings), n treaanze of ait whidi, ibr ifci
peenliaiiij and pietoreaqne variety, is a» yet without a parallel in uy other
coDeetion. The sheets edited by the Baron von KittUti are entitle^ *Ve{^
tationa Anaiditen der KastenMmder nnd Insdn dee stfllen Oceans, a«%eBOiii*
flua 1837^1889 aof der Sntdeeknngs-reiBe der kais. mss. Corvette Se^jawn^
(Siegeo, 1844). Iliere is also great troth to nature in the drawinga of Cad
Bodmer, which are engraved in a mastedy nanner, and Olnstrate the great
work of the taaveis of Prinee Maiimilian m Wied in ii» interior of NcKh

. f^ p. SS.^HnmhoUft, Ansiehtcn der Natnr, 2te Ansgabe, 1826, Bd. k
8. 7, 16, 21, 86, and 42. Compare also two very instmctive meraoirsii Friediiek
von Martins, Fhysionomie des Pflanzenraches in Brasilien, 1824, and M. von
Olfers, allgemwne Uebersieht von Biasilien, in Eddners Beisen, 1828, Bd. i
S. 18--23.

(^ p. 94.— Wilhelm von Humboldt, in his Bru^veohsel mit SdliBa^
1830, S. 470.

(^ p. 95.— Diodor. ii IS. He however gives to the odebmted gaidens
of Semiramis a eiieumference- of only twelve stadia. . The district near fhi
pass of Bagistanos is stQl eaQed the "bow. or eircnit of the garden*'-*1>nk4-
bostan (Droysen, Geseh. Aleianden des Giossen, 18S8, S. 558).

(^ p. 95.— In the Sduhnameh of Firdnsi it is addi "a slender cypRfl^
sprung from Paradiie^ did Zerduaht plant before the gate of the tempk of fire"
(at Ki^imeer in Khorasan). " He had written on the tidl cypress tree, Aat
Gushtasp had embiaeed the true fidth, that the dcnder tree waa a testkaony
thereof, and that thus did God extend righteousness. "When many years had
passed over, the tall cypress became so large that the hunter's covd oould-not
go rouid its drcumliBrenoe. When its top was farmshed with many branehes^
he euoompaased it with a palace of pure gold... ...and caused it to be sail

abroad in the world, 'Where is Uiere on the earth a cypress like that d
Kishmeer ? God sent it me from Paradise, and said. Bow thyself from theoee
to Paradise." (When the Caliph Motewekldl had the sacred cypresses cf
the Magiaus cut down, this one was said to be 1450 years eld.) Compara
Yulkr's Eraginente iiber die Beligiou des Zoroaster^ 1881, S. 71 and I'U^

•ad Bitter, Erdkande, Tit vi., 1. S. 242. The cypwBB (m Arabic aiar iroo^
in Persiaa aerw kohi) appears to be origmally a. native of the monntains of
Bosih, west of Herat (vide G^graphie d'Edrisi, traduit per Jaubert, 1839i
T. i. p. 464).

Q^ p. 96.— Achm. Tat. i. 25; Longiu» Past. ir. p. 108, Seller.
** Gesenius (Thes. lingiUB Hebr. T. iu p. 1124) suggests, veiy justly, the view
that the word Paradise bdonged origiiuUy to the andent Persian langoago^
but that its nse has been lost in the modem Peisian* fSrdosi, although his
own name was taken from it, usually employs only the wovd behischt ; ths
tiHsient Persian origin of the word is, however, expressly witnessed by Po]lnx»
in the Onomast. iz. 8, and.by Xenophon, (ESoon. 4, 13, and 21 ; Anab. i. 2,
■7, and i 4, 10; Gyrop. i4,5. In the sense of 'pleasure-garden* or
'garden,' the word. was probata transferred from the Persian into the
Hebrew {jpardes, Cant. iv. 13 ; Nehem. ii. 8 ; and Ecd. ii. 5), into the Arabie
ifirdoM, plnr. faradint, oompare Alcoran, zxiii. 11, and Lno. 28, 48), into
the Syrian and Armenian {paties, vide Giakciak, Dizionaiio Armeno, 1887b
p. 1194 ; and Schroder, Thes. Xing. Aimrai. 1711, preef. p. 56). The derivi^
tion of the Persian word from the Sansorit {preuiSsa qt paradiMf drcoit, or
district, or foreign la^d), noticed by Benfey (Griech.Wiirzellexikon, Bd. i. 1889,
S. 188), and previously by Bohlen and Gesenins, suits perfectly well in fo^I^
but only indifferently in sense." — ^Buschmann.

Q^) ijf. 96.— Herod, vii. 81 (between Kallatebus and Sordes).

(*«) p. 96.- Bitter, Srdkunde, Th. iy. 2. S. 287, 261, and 681; Ibssqd.
indische Alterthumsknnde, Bd. i. S. 260.

(133) p. 96.— rPausanins, i. 21, 9. Compare also Arboretum Sacrum, in
Meursii Opp. ez recensione Joann. Lami, Yol. x. ilorent. 1758, p. 777—844.

(^) p. 97. — Notice historiqne sur les Jardins des Chinois, in the M^oiies
eoncemant les Chinois, T. viii p. 809.

(»») p. 97.— Idem, p. 818—320.

0?) p. 97.— Sir GeoxKl^yStaunton, Aeoonnt of th^s Embassy of the Earl of
Macartney to China, Vol. iLp. 246.

(137) p. 97._Itot v. PafOder-Mnskau, Andeutnngen uber Landsehafts-
gSrtnerd, 1884. See also bia Picturesque Descriptions of the Old and New
EngUsh Parks, ar weU as that of the Egyptian Garden of &hubia.

(t^ p. 98.— Eloge de la Yillede Moukden, Podme compost par TEmpe-
pm Kien-long, traduit nar le P. Amiot, 1770, p. 18, 22—26, 87, 63—68,
SfS— 87, 104, and 120.
I C^ p. 99.— M^moir^ eoneaBuuit ka Chinois, T. ii. p. 648-^650.

0^ p. 99, — Fh. Fr. yon Siebold, Knadkandige Naandijst vaa japanBcbe en
AineeMhe Flnteii, 1844, p. 4. How great a dUfeienoa between the Tariety
cf Tegetaible fonna cnltifnied for so many ceatmies past in Eastern Asia, and
Qie comparative poverty of the list given by Ck>lnmeUa,in his poem de ColCa
Hortomm (v. 95—105^ 174^176, 255—271, 296-^06), and to which the
•debrated gariand-weairin of Athena were eonimed t It was not until tiie
tame of the Pto]eiaiM» thai in ISgypt* and partienlarly in Alexandria, so]n0>
What greater ptina were liken by the more ekflfiil gardeners to obtaEm variety,
pttticahily for winter eoltifitiea, (Gompale Athen. v. p. 190.)

(^) p. 101.— Kosmoa, Bd. i S. 50—57 (Eng^ edit. VoL i. p. 43—49}.

(MS) p. 107.— Niebohr, rem. GesehieUe, Xh. i. S. 6»; BrayaeB, Gts^
dor BiUnng das hdltinislisehen Staatensyateihsy lt4&, S. 811-^4, 567-
578 ; Fried. Cramer de studiia qvM vnteras ad dianum gaatinak ccmtaterisi
liognas, 1844, p. 2-^18.

O P- 109. — ^In Saoserit^ rioe ii friAi, ootton ketrpdta, sugar *sarian,
nd nard nanartAa; vide Lassen, indische Altetthnmskonde, Bd. i. 1843, S.
245, 250, 270, 289, and 538. On *aarkara and kanda (whence onr sogar.
candy), see my Prolegomena de £stribntione geographica plantamm, 1817i
p. 211 : — ' *' Confadisse videntnr veteres saodwnmi vemm cum Tebasdure
BambnsaB, torn quia ntraqne in anmdinibus inveninntnr, torn etiam qnia vcbe
sanscradana tcharkara, qus ho^e (nt pen. tehakttt el Mndost. 9chukm) pio
iaccharo nostro adhibetar, ^observante Boppio, ex anetoritate Amarasiiihs^
proprie nil delce (madn) si^iiiScat^ sed qnieqnid lapidosmn et arenaeieam est,
ac vel calcnlmn vesicae. Verisimile igitnr, irooem scharicira initio domtant
tebaschimm (saecar mombn) mdieasse^ poaterins in saoeharom nostrum hnmi-
lions amndinis (ihschn, kaadiksohn, kanda) ex simiiitwIiQd aspectos traosfah
tarn esse. Vox BMBbnsfls ex maniba derivator ; ex kaaida nostratinm voeei
candis zuckerkand. In tebaschiro agnosdtur Persamm achir, h. e. lae^
sanscr. kschiram." The Sanscrit name for tabaschir (see Lassen, Bd. L S.
271—^74) is ttfoikKMrs^ bvk a^ $ milk trom the bark: {taat^ek). Com-
pare also Pott, Kordiache Studien in der Zettsohrift fOr die Eunde des HiX^
gea]andes» Bd. viL S. 163— 160> and tins able discoSsioii by Carl Rltter, is
his Eidknoae von Asian, Bd. vi 2, S. 282—237.

0^) p. 112.--£Hald, Geschiehte des Yolkes Israel, Bd. i. 1848, S. SSSh*

834; Lassen, ind. Alterthnmshnnde, Bd. i. S. 528. Cbnqtiire Bodiger, in

th£ ZeitsGhiift fur die Kimde dea Morgenlandes, B. iii S. 4, on Ghfl^eeai

and Kurds, which latter Strabo terms KyrU,

Q^) p. 112-.--B«r4j, the watershed of Onnnzd^ nearly where the chili

NOTBS* XX^

«f tiie Tbian-schan (or IieaTen moimtaiiis); at its western terftiiiiaiSoii, abuts
against the Bolor (Belur-ta^), or rather intersects it, under the name of thi
Asferah chain, north of the highland of Famer (Upa-Mdm, or ooiBitry above
Mem). Compare Bumou^ Ck)mmentaire sor le Taemi, T. i. p. 289, and
Addit. p. clzxz7. with Hnmboldt^ Asie ceatialeb T. i. p. 169^ T. ii pp. 1(^
877> and 890.

O P* 112.— Chronological data lor Egypt:— ^' Menes^ 8900 b. 0. al
least, and probably tolerably exact}— oommeiiieement of the 4th dynasty
(comprising the Pyramid bnilders, C3iephxe&-Scha&a, Cheop6>-Chiifo, aad
Mykennos or Memkera), 3480 ;«— invasioiL of the Hyksos under the 12th
dynasty, to which belongs Amenemha III. the bisilder of the original Laby-
rinth, 2200. A thousand yean at least before Menes, and pr(^biil»ly still
more, must be allowed for the gradual growl^ <rif a dvilisatien which had
reached its completiox^, and had in part become fixed, at least 8480 years be^
fore our era." — (Lepsius, in several letters to xnyselt in March 1846, after
his return from his memorable expedition.) Compare also Buiisen's consi*
derations on the commencement of Universal History, (which, strictly speak-
ing, does not include the earliest hist(»y of ntaakind), in his ingemous and
learned work, ^gyptens Stelle in- Aer Weltgeschichte, 1845, 1st book, 9;
11 — 13. The histoiy and r^gidar chronology of the Chinese go back td
2400, and even to 2700, before our era, much beyond Ju to Hoa&g-ty.
There are noany literary monuments ai the 18th eentury b. c. ; and in the
12th, Thschen-li records the measurement of the length of the solstitial sha*
dow by Tscheu-kung, in the town of Lo-yax^, south of the Yellow Biter,
which is so exact that Laplace found it ^ate aeeordant with the tiiieory'of th*
alteration of the obhquity of the ecliptie, which was only propounded at the
dose of the last century ; so that there' eau be no suspicion of a fictitiona
measurement obtained by calculatxug back. See Edouard Biot sur la Const!-
tution politique de la Chine an 12^me si^e avant notre hn (1845), pp. 8
and 9. The building of Tyre and of the original temple of Melkarth, the
Tyrian Hercales» would reach back to 2760 yeals before 6ur era^ according
to the account which Herodotus received finnatjbe priests (II. 44). Compare
also Heeren, Ideen uber PoHtik und Yerkelff det Ydlker, Th. i; 2, 1824^
S. 12. Simplicias> from a notiee transmitted by Porphyry, estimates ^
antiquity of Babybnian astronomical obseirvatiiDna which were known to Aris-
totle at 1 903 years before Alexander the Great ; and the profound and (Ssntiotii
chronologist Ideler considers this datum by no sieans improbable. Compare

jxnn irones.

lut Hmdhneh dor CSmmologie, Bd. i S. £07 ; the Abhaadhmgen der B«-
liner Akid. tof dai J. 1814, S. 217; and BdeUi, mtixoL UntemidiniigaB
fiber die Mane das Atterthumi, 1888, S. 86. It is a qaeadoii atill wrapped
in obaeoritj, wlieUMr then ia biitorie ground in India eariier tiian 1200
B. c.» aoecnding to flie CSuranideB of Kaahmeer (Bajjatarangini, tiad. pff
Trojer), while MegafUwnea (Indica, ed. Sdiwanbeck; 1845, p. 60) ndam
from 60 to 64 eentoiies from Mann to Ghandngi^ta, far 158 kings d tlis
dynaitj of Magadha; and the astronomer Aiyahhatta places the beginmng of
bis Chionologj 8102 b. o. (Laesen, ind. Atterthnmsk. Bd. L S. 478, SOi,
507» and 610). For the purpose of lendering the nnmbers contained ia tUi
note mora stgnificant in respect to Ihe histoij of civilixation, it maj not te
MqpoiliioDs to reeal, that Ihe destruction of IVogr is placed 1184 — ^Hobbs
1000 or 950 — and Cadmns the Milesian, the first historical writer among tb
GreelcB, 524 years hefora our era. lliis compaiiaontxf epochs shews how
nneqnaUy the desin for an exact record of events and enterprises made itidf
felt among the nations most highly snaoeptible of cnltiire : it reminds ns ia-
volmitarilj of the sentence which Fkto, in the Tunaeas, places in the mouft
of the priests oi Sais: "O Solon, Solon! yon Oreeks still remain ever chil-
dren ; nowhere in Hellas is there an aged man. Your souls are ever yoofh-
fill; yon have in them no knowledge of antiquity, no ancient faith, no wiadom
grown hoar hy age."

C^ p. 112.— Compare Kosmos, Bd. i S. 92 and 160 (EngL ed. YoLL
p. 79 and 144).

Q^ p. I12.--Wilhe]m von Hmnholdt fiber dne Episode des Maha-Bha-
rata, in his Gesammelten Werken, Bd. L S. 73.

C^ p. 116.— Kosmos, Bd. i S. 309 and 851 (Eng. ed. YdL i. p. 283 asd
822) ; Asie centrahs, T. iii. p. 24 and 148.

(^ p. 117.—Flato, Fhsdo, pag. 109, B. (compare Herod. iL 21). Cko-
medes also depressed the macbct of the earth in the middle to receive thB
Mediterranean (Yoss, krit. Blatter, Bd. ii. 1828, S. 144 and 150).

(^^) p. 117.— I first developed this idea in my BeL hist, da voyage mx
r^ons ^inniriales, T. liL p. 286; and in the Ezamen crit. de lliist. doll
gtegr. an 15^me siksle, T. i p. 86—88. Compare also Otfiried Miiller, ia
the GottingiBchen gelehrten Anzeigeii, 1888, Bd. i S. 875. The western-
most basin, to which I apply the general name of Tynbenian, indndes, ao*
cording to Strabo, the Iberian, ligorian, and Sardinian seas. The Syiiie
basin, east of Sicily, indndes the Ansonian or Sicdisn, the Lybian, and tbs
Ionian seas. The southern and sonth-westem part of the JEgean sea mi

KOTES* XXIX

celled Cretae, Saronic, and Myrtoic. The renurbible passage in Aristot. de
Mundo, cap. iii. (pag. 898, Bekk.) relates merely to the smnoiis form of the
coasts of the MediterraDean, and its effect on the inflowing ocean.

O P- 118.— Kosmoe» Bd. i. S. 253 and 464 (Engl. ed. Yol. i. p. 281,
Note 288).

("^ p. 119. — ^Humboldt, Asie centnJe, T. i. p. 67. The two remarkable
passages of Strabo are the following : — " Eratosthenes names three, and Poly*
.bins fiye points of projecting land in which Emnpe terminates. The penin-
•qLis named by Eratosthenes are, firsts the one which extends to the pillan
of Hercules, to which Iberia belongs ; next, that which terminates at the
Sicilian straits, on which is Italy ; and thirdly, that which extends to Malea,
and contains all the nations between the Adriatic, the Eoxine, and the
Tanais.'* — (lib. ii. p. 109.) " We begin with Europe because it is of irregtt-
lar form, and is the part of the world most favonrable to the ennoblement
gf men and of citizens. It is every where habitable, except some lands near
the Tanais, which are desert on account of the cold.*' — (Lib. ii. pag. 126.)

(^) p. 119.— Ukert, Geogr. der Griechen mid Romer, Th. i. Abth. 2,
S. 345-^348, and Th. ii. Abth. 1, S. 194; Johannes v. Miiller, Werke, Bd.
i. S. 88 ; Humboldt, Examen critique, T. i. pp. 112 and 171 ; Otfried MiiUer,
Minyer, S. 64 ; and the same in a critical notice (only too kind) of my me-
moir on the Mythic Geography of the Greeks (Gott. gdehrte Anzeigen, 1888,
Bd. i. S. 872 and 888). I expressed myself generally thus : — ''Eu soulevant
des questions qui ofQriraient deja de Timportance dans Tinter^ des etudes
philologiques, je n'ai pu gagner sur mol de passer enti^rement sous silence ce
qui appartient moins h, la description du monde Teel qu'au cycle de la g^gra*
phie mythique. II en est de Tespace comme du tems ; on ne sauroit traiter
rhistoire sous un point de vue philosophique, en ensevelissant dans tm oubli
absolu les tems heroiques. Les mythes des penples, meles h Thistoire et a la
geographie, ne sont pas en entier du domaine du monde ideal. Si le vague
est un de leurs traits distinct, si le symbole y couvre la realite d'un voile
pins on moins epais, lea mythes intimeinent li^s entr*eux, n'en rev^ent pas
moins la souche antique des premiers aper9us de cosmographie et de phy-
sique. Les faits de lldstoire et dela geographie primitives ne sont pas senle-
ment d'ingenieuses fictions, les opinions qu'on s'est formees sur le monde
red s'y refletent." The great investigator of antiquity, whom I have named,
whose early death on the soil of Greece, to which he devoted such profound
and varied research, has been universally lamented, thought, on the contrary,
hat^ *f in the poetic idea of th« earthy such as it appears in Greek poetry, the

IZX 1V0TXS»

diiflf part isby no meaiu to be maoMi to the ^eenlts of aetaal eipeneDee,
invested bj crednljty and the lore of the marrdLoBB, with a fBibuIoos appew •
anoe, (aa is supposed to have been particolarly the eaae in the msrilimelq;eiids
of the PhGBDician sailors) ; we should, on the oontnrj, seek the bases of the
imaginary pictnie rather in certain ideal presuppositions and requirements ci
the feelings, on which a trqa geogr^hical knowledge has <Mily gradnally
began to work. From this there has often resulted the interesting phenome-
non, that purely subjective creations of a &ncy working under the gnidanst
of certain ideas, pass almost imperoeptiUiy into real countgnea, and wdl'
known objects (rf scientific geography. We may infer from these oonsidaa-
tions, that all pictures of the imagination, either mythical or arrayed ia
mythical forms, belong; in their pn^er groundwork, to an ideal world, and
have no original connexion with the actual extension of the knowledge of the
earth, or of navigation beyond the pillars of Hercules." The opinion ex-
pressed by me in the French work was more aceordant witb the eariier viewi
of Otfried Muller, for in the Prol^menon zu einer wissenaehaftUchen My-
thologie, S. 68 and 109, he said very distinctly, that, "in mythical narrs-
tives, what is done and what is imagined, the real and the ideal, are moii
often closely combined with each other." Compare also, on the Atlantis sod
Lyktonia, Martin, Etudes sur le Tim^ de Fhston,' T. i. p. 293—326.)

(^) p. I20.«-Naxos by Ernst Curtius, 1846, S. 11 ; Droysen, GeschiditB
der Bildang des hellenistischen Staatensystems, 1843, S. 4 — 9.

0^) p. 121. — Leopold von Bach iiber die geognostischen Systems von
Deutschland, S. xi. ; Humboldt, Asie centnde, T. i. p. 284—286.

0*0 p. 121.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 479 (Engl. edit. Vol. i. Note 389).

(^ p. 122. — All relating to Egyptian dironoLogy and history (from ^
122 to p. 125), which is distinguished by marks of quotation, rests on maon-
script communications received from my friend Professor Lepsius, in Matdi
1846.

(^ p. 122.— With Otfried Miiller, I place the Bono immigration into
the Peloponnesus 828 years before the fizat Olympiad (Dorier, Abth. il S.
436.)

0^ p. 123.— Tac. Annal. ii. 59. In the Papyrus of Saflier (Campagnei
de Sesostris), Cbampollion found the names of the Javani' or Jouni and the
Luki (lonians and Lycians ?). Compare Bunseu, iBgypten, Buch L S. 60.

(Wi) p. 124.— Herod, ii. 102 and 103; Diod. Sic. i. 56 and 66. Of ths
memorial pillars (stelse) or tokens of victory which Bamses Miamonn set up
in the conntries which he traversed, three are expressly named by Herodotm

J

KOTBS.

(ii. 106) — " one in Palestinian Sjrn, and two in Ionia— on tb^ passage from
the Epheaian territory to Fhocsea, and from that of Sardis to Smyrna.** A
cock inscription, in which the name of Bamses presents itself several tisMi^
has been found in Syria, near the Lycos, not far from Beirut (Beiytos), af
well as another ruder one in the valley of Karahel, near Nymj^o, and*
according to Lepsios, on the way from the Ephesian territory to PhocisB%.
Lepsius, in the Ann. dell' Institnt archeol. Vol. z. 1838, p. 12; and in hi*
letter from Smyrna, Dec. 1845, published in the archaologischen Zeitm^g,
Mai 1846, No. 41, S. 271—280. Kiepert, in idem, 1843, No. 8, S. 35.
The now rapidly advancing discoveries in archseol(^ and phonetic languages
will hereafter decide whether, as Heeren believes (Greschichte der Staaten des
Alterthums, 1828, S. 76), the great conqueror penetrated ^ far as Persia and
^indostan, "as Western Asia did not then as yet contain any great empire"
(the building of Assyrian Nineveh is placed only in 1230 B.C.). Strabo (lib.
jKvi. p. 760) speaks of a memorial piUar of Sesostris B«ar the Strait of Dei^e,
now called Bab-el-Mandeb. It is, however, also very probable, that in ^ the
old kingdom," above 900 years before Bamses l^^iamonn, Egyptian kin^
may have made similar military expeditions into Asia. It was under the
Pharaoh Setos II. the second successor of the great BaBoaes Miamoun, and
belonging to the 19th dynasty, that Moses went out of Egypt, according to
Lepsius about 1300 years before our era.

Q^ p. 125. — ^According to Aristotle, Strahoi, and Pliny ; but not accords
' ing to Herodotus. See Letronne, in the Bevue des deo^c Mondes, 1841, T«
xxvii. p. 219 ; and Droysen, Bildung des heUenist. Staatensystem^ S. 735.

0^ p. 125. — To the important opinions of Bennell, Heeren, and Sprengel^
which are favourable to the reality of the circumnavigation of Lybia, we must
now add that of a profound philologist, Etienne Quatremere (M^oires de
TAcad. des Inscriptions, T. xr. P. 2, 1845, p. 380--388). The most con-
vincing argument for the truth of the account given by Herodotus (iv. 42)
appears to me to be the observation which seems to him so incredible, viz.
" that those who sailed round Lybia, in sailing from east to west, had had the
sun on their riffht hand" In the Mediterranean, in sailing from east to
west, the sun at noon was always seen to the lefk only. It w^ould seem as if
a more accurate knowledge of the possibility of such a navigation had existed
in Egypt previous to the time of Neku II. (Nechos), as Herodotus makes him
distinctly command the Phoenicians " to make their return to Egypt by the
Pillars of Hercules." It is singular that Strabo, who (lib. ii. p. 98), discnssea
at such length the attempted circumnavigation of Eadoxus of Cyzicus under

V3& KOTBS.

CSeopatra, and mentioni fragments of a ship from Oadein fonnd on tin
£thiopian (eastern) coast, declares the accounts given of earlier circnnmaTiga*
tions actually accomplished to be BergaU f ablet (lib. ii. p. 100) ; but he I7
fio means denies the possibility of the circamnayigation itself (lib. i. p. 38),
and aifirms that from the east to the west there is but little remaining wantmg
to its completion (lib. L p. 5). Strabo did not at all concur in the extraordt^
nary isthmus-hypothesis of Hipparchus and Marinus uf Tyre, according ts
which Eastern Africa joined on to the south-east end of Asia, making ilk
Indian Ocean a Mediterranean Sea (Humboldt, Examen crit. de THist. de
la G^gniphie, T. i. p. 139—142, 145, 161, and 229 ; T. ii. p. 370—873).
Strabo quotes Herodotus, but does not name Nechos, whose expedition he
altogether confounds with one directed by Darios round Southern Persia and
Arabia (Herod, iv. 44). Gosselin has even proposed, with too great boldness
to change the reading from Darius to Nechos. A counterpart for the horses'
hisad of the ship of Gadeira, which Eudoxus is said to hare exhibited in s
market-place in Egypt, may be found in the remains of a ship of the Red Se^
brought to the coast of Crete by westerly currents, accoruing to the account
of a very trustworthy Arabian historian (Masudi, in the Morudj-al-dzehe1i^
Quatrem^re, p. 380, and Beinaud, Relation des Voyages dans Tlnde, 1845,
T. i. p. xvi. and T. ii. p. 46).

C") p. 125.— Diod. Ub. i. cap. 67, 10; Herodotus, ii. 154, 178, and 18i
On the probability of intercourse between Egypt and Greece before the tims
of Psammetichus, see the ingenious observations of Ludwig Ross, in Helle-
nika, Bd. i. 1846, S. y. and x. " In the times immediately preceding Psam-
metichus," says the last named writer, "there was in both countries a period
of internal disorder, which could not but entail a diminution and paitisl
interruption of intercourse.

(*") p. 126. — Bockh, metrologischo Untersuchungen tLber Gewichtei
Munzfosse und Masse des Alterthums in ihrem Zusammenhang, 1838, S. 19
nnd 278.

0*) p. 126. — See the passages collected in Otfried MfiUer's Minycr, 8.
115, and in his Dorier, Abth. i. S. 129; Franz, Elementa Epigraphica
GrffiCSB, 1840, p. 13, 32, and 34.

(**0 P* 127. — Lepsius, in his important memoir, fiber die Anordnung raid
Yerwandtschaft des semitischen, indischen, alt-persischen, alt-segyptischen
nnd ffithiopischen Alphabets, 1836, S. 23, 28 und 57 \ Gesenius, Scriptonv
Phoenicia Mouumenta, 1837, p. 17.

(»«) I?. 128.— Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 757,

•••

9<yrEs* xxxui

C") p. 128. — ^It is easier to determine the locaKty of the " land of lin*
(Britain and the Scillj Islands) than that of the "amber coast';" for it
seems'to me very improbable that tbe old Greek denomination Kaffffirtgot,
which was in nse eren in the Homeric times, is to be derived from a stauni*
ferous mountain in the sonth-west of Spain, called Mount Cassins, and which
Avieuns, who was well acquainted with the ooontry, placed between Gaddir
tnd the mouth of a small southern Ibems (Ukert, Geogr. der Griechen und
Bomer, Theil ii. -Abth. i. S. 479). Kassiteros is the ancient Indian Sanscrit
word kastSra. Zinn in German, den in Icelandic, tin in English, and tenn in
Swedish, is in the Malay and Javanese language, timah ; a simOariiy of sound
whidi reminds us of that of the old German word glessum (the name given
to transparent amber) to the modem " glas," glass. The names of articles of
commerce pass from nation to nation, and become adopted into the most
different languages (see above, p. 109, and Note 143.) Through the inter-
course which the Phienicians, by means of their factories in the Persian Gulf,
maintained with the east coast of India, the Sanscrit work kastira, expressing
a most useful product of further India,' and still existing among the old
Aramaic idioms in the Arabian word kasdir, becsnne known to the Greeks
even before Albion and the British Cassiterides had been visited (Aug. Wilh.
V. Schlegel, in the indischen Bibliothek, Bd. ii, S. E93 ; Benfiey, Indica, S.
307 ; Pott, etymol. Forschungen, Th. ii. S. 414 ; Lassen, indische Alter-
thumskunde, Bd. i. S. 239). A name often becomes an historical monument,
and the etymological analysis of languages, which is sometimes ignorantlj
derided, is not without its fruit. The ancients were also acquainted with the
existence of tin (one of the rarest metals on the globe) in the country of the
Artabri and the Callaici, in the north-west part of the Iberian continent
(Strabo, lib. iii. p. 147 ; Plin. xxxiv. c. 16) ; nearer of access, therefore, for
navigators frx>m the Mediterranean than the Cassiterides ((Estrymnides of
Avienus). When I was in Galicia, in 1799, before embarking for the
Canaries, nuning operations were still carried on, on a very poor scale, in the
granitic mountains (see my Bel. hist. T. i. p. 51 and 53). The occurrenee of
tin in this locality is of some geological importance, on account of the former
eonsection of Galicia, the peninsula of Brittany, and Cornwall.

(^^ p. 128.— Etienne Quatremere, M^m. de TAcad. des Inscript. T. xr«
P. u. 1845, p. 363^--870.

0^) p. 128.— Hie early expressed opinion (Heinzen's neses KieUschei
Magazin, Th. ii. 1787, S. 839 ; Siprengel, Gesch. der geogr. Entdeckungen^
1792 ; S. 51 ; Yosi^ krit. Blatter, Bd. ii. S. 392—403) is now gaining
VOL. II. 2 D

-U I

UXIT K0TB8.

gnrand, tliat tiie ambor was btooght 3y m«» aik fint only from ^wttt Cfak
liriaii coast, and thafc it leachad tiie HeditemniaiL chieflj l^ land, boog
liroD^t acrosa the i]iter?emog conntriea hj means of inland traffic and baitv.
The moat thorongh and acute investigation of this subject is contained ia
ITkert's memoir iiber daa Eleetnim, in dor Zeitsehzift fur AlterthnmswisBoi-
8chaft» Jahr. 1838, No. 52-*56. (Compare with it the same author's Geo*
graphie der Grieohen nnd Bomer, TL ii Abth. iL 1832, S. 26—36, TL E
i. 1843, S. 86, 175, 182, 320, and 340.) The Massilians, who, according is
Heeren, penetrated, after the PheBnicians, as &r as the Baltic, under Pjrthea^
hardly went beyond the mouths of the Weser and the Elbe. The amber
islands (Glessaria, also called Anstrania) are placed by Pliny (ir. 16) de»
cidedly west of the CSmbriaa pnaumtory in the German Sea; and the con*
nection with the eipedition of Gecmanicus sufBciently shews that an island ia
the Baltic is not meant Moreover, the effocts of the ebb and flood tides in
the estuaries which throw up amber, where, according to the expressiou of
Servins, *'marevicissim turn aocedit, turn reoedit," suits the coasts between
the Helder and the Cimbrian peninsula, but does not suit the Baltic, in which
Timsns places the island of Baltia (Pfin. xxxviL 2)^ Abalus, a day's joaraey
from an sestuarium, eaanot, therefore, be the Kuzische Nehmng. On the
voyage of I^rtheas to the west shores of Jutland, and on the amber trade
along the whole coast of Skagen, as £» as the Netherlands, see also
Werlauff, Yidrag til den nordiscke Bavhandels Historic (Ciopenh. 1835).
Tacitus, not Pliny, is the first writer acquainted with the glessum of the
shores of the Baltic, in the land of the .^styaos (iBstuonun gentium) and the
Venedi, concerning whom the great ethnologist Schaffiurik (slawische Alter-
thiimer, Th. i. S. 151—165), is uncertain whether' they were Slavonians or
Germans. The more active direct connection with the Samland coast of the
Baltic, and with the ,^&8tyans by means of the overland route throoj^
Pannonia, by Gamuntum, which was opened by a Boman knight under Nen^
appears to me to have belonged to the later times of the Roman Ciesan
(Voigt, Gesch. Prensaen's, Bd. L S. 85.) The relations between the Pmssiaa
eoasts and the Greek colonies on the Black Sea are evidenced by fine ooini^
struck probably before the 85th Olympiad, whidi have been recently fiouid it
the Nets district (Lewezow, in den AbhandL der BerL Akad. der Yfvss, ans
dem Jahr 1833, S. 181—224). No doubt the amber stranded or buried on
coasts (Plin. zxzvii cap. 2),~the electron, the wn 4tone of the very ancient
mythns of the Eridanus,— came to the south, both by land and by sea, from
xVeiy difGsrent districts. The " amber duff tip at tw9 places in Scythia wis

NOTES, XXX? '

li part very dark eoloixred," Amber is still eollected near KaltschedaxiBk,
npi^ &r from KamenBTc, on the Ural; fingments imbedded in lignite wen
g^ven to na in Katbarinenbnig. See G. Bo8e> Reiae nack den^ Ural, Bd. U
8. 481; and Sir Boderick Mnrchison, in the Geology of Bossia^ Vol. i. p.
306. The fossil wood wbidi often saironnda tke amber had early attracted
the attention of the ancienta. This resin, which was at that time so highly
▼alned, was ascribed to the black pojdar (according to the Chian Seymnns, y,
896, p. 867, Letronne), or to a tree of the cedar or piae kind (according to
Mithridates, in Flin. zzzvii. cap. 2 and 3). The recent exceUeot inyestiga*
tions of Prof. Goppert^ at Breskn, have shewn that the ooiyecture of the
Roman collector was the more correct. Respecting the fossil amber tree
(Finitea sucdnifer) bdongiog to an earlier vegetation, compare Kosmos, Bd. i.
8. 298 (EngL edit. YoL I p. 273) andBerendt, oiganische Reste im Bern-
stein, Bd. i. Abth . i 184.5, S. 89.

(^ p. 129. — ^Respecting the Chremetes^ see Aiistot. Meteor. liK i. p. 350,
Bekk. ; and respecting the southern stars, <^ which Hanno makes mention in
his ship's journal^ see my Rel. Hist. t. i p. 172 ; and Examen Grit, de la
Geogr. t. i. p. 39, 180, and 288 ; t. iii. p. 135. (Grosselin Recheiches snr
la Geogr. System, des Ajidens, t. U p. 94 wd 98 ; Ukert, Th. L S. 61-66.)

Q^ p. 129. — Strabo, lib. xvii. p. 826. The destmction of PIuBniciaa
eolonies by Nigritians (lib. ii. p. 131) appears to indicate a very southern
locality ; more so, perhaps, than the crocodiles and dephants mentioned by
Hanno, as both these were certainly found north of the desert of Sahara, in
Maurusia, and in the whole western country near the chain of Mount Atlas*
as is plain from Strabo, lib. xvii. p. 827 ; Mian de Nat. Anim. vii. 2 ; Plin,.
T. 1, and from many occurrences in the wars between Rome and Carthage..
On this important subject, as respects the geography of animals, see Cuvier,
Ossemens fossiles, 2 ^. t i* p. 7^ ; and Quatrem^re's work, already dted
(Mem. de TAcad. des Inscriptions, t. xv. p. 2, 1845), p. 891—894.)

(i») p. 130.— Herod, iii 106.

P) p. 181.— In another work (Examen Crit. t. i. p. 130—139; t. ii
p. 158 and 169 ; t. iii. p. 187—140) I have treated in detail this often con-
tested subject, as well as the passages of Diodorus (y. 19 and 20), and of the
l^seudo-Aristot. (Mirab. Auscnlt. cap. Ixxxv. p. 172, Bekk.) The compila-
tion of the Mirab. Auscnlt. appears to be older than the end of the first Punie
war, as in cap. cv. p. 211, it describes Sardinia as under the dominion of the
Carthaginians. It is also remarkable, that the wood^dothed island men*
tioned in this work is said t© be uninhabited, not therefore peopled with

XXXVt KOTES.-

Gtmncliefl. Gnuichfli inhabited the whole group of the Canary IsIanA^ hut
aot the iahmd of Madeura^ in which no inhabitants were found either by Jolui
CKHizalfes and Tristan Yaz in 1619, or at an earlier period bj Robert Madmm
and Anna Dorset (supposing tiieir romantic story to be historically true.)
Heeren applies the description of Diodonis to Madeira only, yet he thinb
that in tiie account of Festus Afienus (v. 164), so conYcrsant with Pome
writings, he can recognise the frequent volcanic earthquakes of the Peak of
Tenerifi^ (Vide his Ideen fiber PoUtik nnd Huidel, Th. 11. Abth. 1, 1826,
8. 106.) From the geographical connection, the description of AYienus ap-
pears to me to refer to a more northern locality, perhaps eren to the Eronie
sea. (Ezamen Grit. t. iii. p. 1S8.) Ammianus MaroellinuB (xxiL 15), also
notices the Punic sources which Juba used. Bespecting the probability of
the Semitic origin of the name of the Canary Islands (the dog islands of
Pliny's Latin etymology !), see Credner's biblische Yorstdlong-yom Paradieae^
indgen'sZeitschr. fiir die historische Theologie, Bd. vi. 1836, S. 166—186.
All that has been written from the most ancient times to the middle ago^
respecting the Canaiy Ishmds, has been recently brought together in the
fullest manner by Joaquim Jose da Costa de Macedo, in a work entitled,
Memoria em que se pretende provar que os Arabes nfto conhecerfto as Can^
rias antes d<^ Portuguezes, 1844. Where history, so far as it is founded oa
certain and distinctly expressed testimony is silent, there remain only diffis*
rent degrees of probability; but an absolute denial of every £Bct in the
world's history of which the evidence is not perfectly distinct, appears to me
no happy application of phiblogic and historic criticism. The many indict-
tions which have come down to us from antiquity, and careful consideratioDS
cf the geographical relations of proximity to andent undoubted settlements on
the African coast, lead me to believe that the Ganaiy group was known to the
Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks and Romans, and perhaps even to the
Etruscans.

Q"^ p. J 31. — Compare the calculations in my Bd. Hist. t. i. p. 140 and
287. The Peak of Teneriffe is distant 2"^ 49' of arc from the nearest point d
the African coast. Assuming a mean refraction of 0'08, the summit of tfaa
Peak may therefore be seen from a height of 202 toises, and thus from the
Montafias Negras, not far from Cape Bojador. In this calculation the eleva
tion of the Peak above the level of the sea has been taken at 1904 toises. It
has been recently determined trigonometrically by Captain Yidal at 1940
toises, and barometrically by Messrs. Coupvent and Bumonlin (DTTrviUflb
V6yage an Pole Sod, Hist. t. i. 1842, p. 31 and 82) at 1900 toiate. But

.KOTES. xxxvii

Inmcapote, mth a volcano, la GoroxLa* of. 800 toises deration (Loop. ▼. Bach,
Canariflche Insdn, S. 104), and FortaYentora, are mnch nearer to the mam*
land than Teneriffe : the distance of the first-named ishind bebg 1** 15'. and
that of the aeoond r 2'.

O'O P' 132- — ^Ross only mentions this assertion as a report. (Hellenika,
Bd. i. S.. 11.) May thcsnpposed observation have rested on a mere iUnnonf
If we take the eleyation of Etna above the sea at 1704 toises (lat. 87^ 46'»
long, from Paris 12*^ 410, ^^'^ tiiat of the place of observation, on the
Taygetos.(the Elias Hoontain), at 1236 toises Qat, 36'' 57', long, from Farit
20^ 10> and the distance between the two at 852 geographical miles, we have
for the point above Etna, receiving light from it, and being visible on
Taygetos (jr. lor the doud perpendicularly above the luminous column of
smoke, and reflecting its light), an elevation of 7612 toises, or 4i times
greater than that of Etna. But if, as my friend Professor Endce has re-
marked, we might assume the reflecting surfiice to be thai of a doud placed
nearly intermediately between Etoa and Taygetos» then its height above the
sea would only require to be 286 toises.

P) p. 188.— Strabo, lib. zvi. p. 767, Casaub. According to Polybius^
both the Euxine and the Adriatic could be seen tnm. the Aimon mountains ;

, Strabo was already aware of tiie inadmissibility of sodi a supposition (lib. vii.
p. 313.) Compare S^mnu8,.p. 93.

(^ p. 138. — On the synonymes.of Ophir, see my Examen Grit, de THist.
do la Geographie, t.u. p. 42. Ptolemy, in lib. vi. cap. 7> p* 156, speaks of a
Sapphara, metropolis of Arabia ; and in lib. vii. cap. 1, p. 168, of Supara, in
the Gulf of Camboya (Barigazenns sinus, according to Hesychius), " a country
rich in gokL" 1 Supara signifies in Indian, &ir shore (Schonufer.) (Lassei).
'Diss, de Ttepobrane, p. 18, indische Altersthumkunde, Bd. i. S. 107; Keil,

•Pjrofessor in Dorpat, liber die Hiram-Salomomsche. SchifiGeduinach Ophir
imd Tarsis, S. 40—45.)

' P^ p. 138. — Whether ships of Tarshish mean ocean ships, or whether,
as MichadiB contends, .they have their name from the Phoenician Tarsus, in

.CiHda?. see. Keil, S. 7, 15—22, and 71—84.

O p. 188. — Oesenins, Thjesanrus Lbguss Hebr. t.i. p. 141; and the

•same in the Encyd. of Ersch.aod Gruber, Sect. m. Th. iv. S. 401 ; Lassen,
ind. Altorthumskunde, Bd. L S..588 ; Reinand, ReUtion des Voyages fiiits par

te Arabes dans I'lnde et en Chine, t. i 1845, pi ;txviii. The learned Quatre-

'whe, who^.ina very recentiy published treatise (Mem. de TAcad. des la-

lacriptions, t; xv. pt. 2, .1845 «*.349— 402), again considers,, with Heoreii,

jCXXVin KOTXS*

OpUrtD be the CMt eottt «r AfriM, «zpbiiii tiM «lnkkiim (thiikkiyybB) ti '
mean not peaooda. Vat perroU, or Gdnea-fowli (p. 875.) Bespecting Sooo*
ton, eompaie Bohkn, dai ilte Indien, Tk. n. S. 139, trith Ben&y, Indieo,
S. 80—82. SoCeda it deteribed as a eonntry rich in gold by Ediisi Cm
Amed^ Jaabat*8 trandatioa, t. L p*. 67), and nibseqnently bj the Portpgoese^
after Gema's voyage of disooverf (Barroe, Dee. I. Ut, z. tmp, i; P. ii. p. 37S;
Kulfa,G«echiehteder£ntdeefaing8vd8en,Th.i.l841, S. 286.) IbaveeaDfii
attention ekevHiere to the ciscamstance that Sdriai, in the middle of the 13&
eentnry, q^eaka of the empies^enl of qniekail?er in the goldwaahingt madt
by the negroes in this eovntry, as a long known practiee. Rememboxng tilt
great freqnencf of the interdiange of r and I, we find the name of the evk
African Sofida fcrfiBotly efmvalent to thai of Sophata, which i» used in tltf
Septnagint, with aoreral other ftrma, for theOphir of Solomon'a and Hicna*!
fleet. Ptolemy abe, as has been notieed above (Note 179), ^eaks of n Sflf>
phara, in Arabia (Bitter, Asien, Bd. viiL 1846, S. 252), and a Supara ialn^fc
The aignificant Sanaerit names of the mother oenntiy had been repeated, or,
as it were, reflected on ndghbowing «r opposite coasts: we find similar ifr
lations in the present day in the SpaniAh and En^ish Americas. The range
ei the trade to Ophir might thos, aeooiding to my view, be ertended over a
jpride spaoe, jnst aa a Phmaiciao voyage to Taxtesscis might indnde tondiisg
at Cyrene and Carthage, Gadeira and Geme ; and >one to the Cassitendei
might embrace the Artabrian^ ]Mtish, and East Cimbrian coasts. ItiB^
however, remarkable, that we do not find inoense, s]^oes, and silk and eottoi
eloth, named among the wwes from Ophir, together with ivory, iqpes, adl
peaoods* GQie latter are ezdusively Indian, althoagh, from their gradad
esteBsion to the westward, they were often called, by the Greeks ''Mediaa
and Persian birda:" the Samians even siqpposed them to have been originallf
belonging to Samoa, onaooonnt of the peacocks kept by the priests in the
sanctoary of Hera. Prom a passage in Enstathins (Comm. in Biad. t ir.
p^ 225, ed. lips. 1827), on the sacredness of peaoo^ in Idbya» it has heea
unduly inferred that the rams also belonged to Africa.

O P* 999. — See Ckdoipibus on Ophir* and el Monte Sopora, "wldck
Solamon'-s fleet could only reach in three >year8^" in Navarrete, viages y deMO-
brimientos que hideron los Espafldes, t. i. p. 108. The great discovoer
81^8 elsewhere, still in the hope of reacdiing Ophir, "the ezeeQence aad
power of the gold of Ophir are indcsGribable;. he who possesses it does whit
he wills in this world; nay, ii esen amla him to draw sonls from pugatoiy
to paradise*' ("Uega k qneeeha bs animaa alparaiao.")— Carta del Ahminibi

NOTES. XXXIX

fierita en la Jamaica, 1503 ; Navanrete, t. i. p. 809. Compare my Ezamn
Critiqiie, t. i. p. 70, and 109 ; t. ii p. 38^44, and on the proper duration
of the Tarshish voyage, KeO, S. 106.

(^ p. 133.— CtesisB Cnidii Opemm ReUqme, ed. Felix Baehr, 1824^
cap. 17; and xii. p. 248; 271* and 300. But the aocoonts collected hj the
physician at the Persian court finmi native sources, and therefore not altoge-
ther to be rejected, relate to districts In the north of India, and from thesis
the gold of the Daradas most have otane to Abhira, the month of the Indus^
and the coast of Malabar, by many ^nronitous roates. (Compare my Asie
Centrale, t. i. p. 157, and Lassen, ind. Alterthnmsknnde, Bd. i. S. 5.) Is il
not probable that the wonderM story repeated by Ctesias, of an Indian springs
at the bottom of whidh malleable iron was found when the fluid gold had run
of^ was based on a misunderstood account of a foundry P The molten iron
was taken for gold from its colour; and when the yellow cobur had disap-
feared in cooling, the black mass of iron was found underneath.

(»<) p. 184.— Aristot. Mirab. Aosenlt. cap. 86 and 111, p. 175 and 225,
Bdck.

O p. 185.— Die Etmsker, by Otfried Muller, Abth. ii. S. 350 ; Niebuhr,
Bomiscbe Geschichte, Th. ii. S. 880.

(^ p. 135.— A story was f(»merly repeated in Germany after Either
Angelo Cortenovis, that the tomb of the hero of Cluaium, Lars Porseni^
described by Yarro, ornamented with a bronze hot and bronze pendent chaini^
was an apparatus for atmospherical electricity, or for conducting lightning ;
(as were, according to MichaeliB, the metal points on Solomon's temple;)
but the tale obtained currency at a time when men were much inclined to
attribute to ancient nations the remains of a supematuraUy revealed primitive
ksQwledge which was soon after obscured. The most important ancient notice
of the reUtions between lightning and conducting metals (a £ict not difSiOnlt
of discovery), stiU appears to me to be that of CtesiaB (Indies, cap. 4, p. 169|
ed. lion; p. 248, ed. Baehr). He had possessed two iron swords, presents
from the king Artaxerxes Mnemon, and from his mother Farysatifl, which^
when phmted in the earth, averted clouds, haO, and strokes of lightning. He
had himself seen the operation, for the king had twice made the experiment
before his eyes." The exact att^tion paid by the Etruscans to the meteoro*
logical processes of the atmosphere in all that deviated from the ordinary
course of phenomena, makes it certainly to be lamented that nothing has coma
down to us from their Fulgural books. The epochs of the appearance of great
eomets, of the &11 of meteoric stones, and of showers of foiling stars, would

■o doubt ham been ftHuid recorded in them, ai in the more ancient Ghinese
•nnak, of which Bdoaard Biot has made lae. Cieoaer (Sjmbolik nnd Mj-
thologie der alten Volker, Th. iii 1842, S. 669) has attempted to show, that
the natural features of Etmria may have inflaeneed the peculiar torn of mind
of its inhabitants. A " calling forth" of the lightning, which is ascribed is
Pirometheos, reminds as af the pretended "drawing down" of lightning bj the
Palguratons. Thia operation consisted in a mere coiynration, andmajwefl
have been of no more eiBcacj than the skinned ass's head, which, in the £tn»
can rites, was considered a preservatiTe from danger in timnder storms.

a^ p. ISS.^Otfr. Miillfir, Etrosker, Abth. ii. S. 162 to 178, In ths
ferjr complicated Etroscan angoral theoij, a distinetion was made between
the " soft reminding lightnings sent by Jnpiter from his own perfect power,
and the violent electrical explosions or chastening timnderbolts which he mi^
only send oonstitntionallj after consoltatian with the other twdre godk"
(Seneca, Nat. Qnast. ii. p. 41.)

(^ p. 186.— Job. Lydns de Ostentis, ed. Hase, p. 18 in prafied.

(^ p. 186.— Strabo, lib. iiL p. 189, Casanb. Compare Wilhehn tqb
Humboldt, fiber die Urbewohner Hiapaniens, 1821, S. 123 and 181—136.
M. de Sanlcy has been recently engaged, with success, in deciphering the
Iberian alphabet ; the ingenioos discoyerer of cuneiform writing, Grotefond,
the Phrygian; and Sir Charles Fellowes, the Lydan alphabet. (Compirs
Boss, Hellenika, Bd. i. S. 16.)

P») p. 187.— Herod, iv. 42 (Schweighauser ad Herod. T. t. p. 2M).
Compare Humboldt, Asie Centrale, T. i p. 64 and 677.

C") p. 188. — On the most probable etymology of Kaspapyrus of Hecatans
(Fragm. ed. Klansen, No. 179, ▼. 94), and Easpatyms of Herodotus ^. 102;
•nd iy. 44), see my Asie centrale, T. i p. 101—104.

0") p. 188.— Psemetek and Aohmea. See aboy^ Eoamos, Bd. it S. 159
(EngL ed. VoL ii p. 126).

(^ p. 188. — ^Droysen, Gesehichte der Bildung des LellenistisdMi
Staatensystems, 1848, S. 28.

(»*) p. 188.— See aboye, Kosmoa, Bd. ii. S. 10 (Engl. ed. Vol ii. p. 10).

0**) p. 189.- Volker, Mythische Geographie der Griechen und Bomer,
Th. i. 1882, S. 1 — 10; Klausen, iiber die Wandenmgen der lo und des
Herakles, in Niebnhr und Brandis rheinischen Museen fur FhQolc^^
Gesehichte undgriech. Philosophic, Jahrg. iii. 1829, S. 293—328.

0^ p. 189.— In the mythus of Abaris (Herodr iy. 36), the man does not
traytl tk-nugh the air on an arrow, but carries the arrow "which F^thaguM

i

.NOTES. XU

.pm him (Ismbi. de Vita^Fythag. nix. p«.194, KieMUng), in order that il
might be nsefiil to him in all difficulties doling long wanderings." Creazer,
Symbolik, TL ii. 1841, S. 660 — 664. On* the repeatedlj disappearing and
reappearing Arimaspian bard, Aristeas of Proconnesos, vide Herod, iy. 13 — 15.
. (U7) p. 189.— Strabo, lib. i. p. 38, Casmb.

(^ p. 140.-*Fh>bably the yall^ of the Don or of the Enban; compare
my Asie Centrale, T. ii. p. 164. Fherecydes says expressly (fragm. 37 ex
Schol. ApoUon. ii. 1214), that the Cancasos burned, and therefore Typhon
Hed to Italy; from which Kknsen, in the work above referred to (S. 298),
explains the ideal relalion of the "fire kindler" (irvpxacvs), Prometheus, to
the burning mountain. Although the geological constitution of the Caucasus,
which has been very recently well examined by Abich, and its connection with
the volcanic chain of the Thian-schan, in the interior of Asia (which connection
has, I think, been shown by me in my Asie Centrale, T. ii. p. 55 — 59), render
it by no means improbable that very early traditions may have preserved
reminiscences of great volcanic eruptions ; yet it is rather to be assumed, that
the Greeks may have been led to the hypothesis of the "burning^* by etymo-
logical dicnmstanoes. On the Sanscrit etymologies of Graucasns (Glansberg P)
(6r shining moantain), aee Bohkn's and Bumouf's statements, in my Asie
Centrales T. i. p. 109.

(^ p. 140.— OtMed Mitller, Minyer, S. 247, 254, and 274. Homer was
not acquainted with the Fhasis, or with Colchis, or with the pillars of Hercules ;
but Hesiod names the Phasis. The mythical narrations concerning the return
of the Argonauts by the Phasis into the Eastern Ocean, and the " double"
Triton lake, formed dther by the pretended bifurcation of the Ister,, or by
Tolcanio earthquakes (Asie Centrale, T. i. p. 179, T. iii. p. 135 — 137 ; Otfr.
Muller, Minyer, S. 857), are particukrly important towards a knowledge of
thB earliest views fptertained regarding the form of the continents. The
geographical fancies of Peisandros, Timagetus, and Apollonius of Rhodes,
were propagated until late in the middle ages, operating sometimes aai
bewildering and deterring obstacles, and sometimes as stimulating incitements
to actual discoveries. This reaction of antiquity upon later times, when men
frere almost more led by opinions than by actual observations, has not been
hitherto sufficiently regarded in the history of geography. The object of the
notes to Cosmos is not merely to present bibliographical sources from the
literature of different nations, for the elucidation or illustration of statements
eontained in the text, but I have also desired to deposit in these notes,
which permit greater freedom, sooh abundant matoiflk for reflection as I

xlii nom.

kave ben able to gaUur horn, my ewn gqwriance^ and ftom long-eQilmni
literuy ftndiee.

^ p. 141.— Hecatoi fragm. ed. Klaaaen, p. 89, 02. 98, and 119. Sn
alao my mTeatigatioiia on the biatoiy of the geogn^j of the GaifianSei^
from Herodotaa down to the Aiabian El-Istachxi, Edzid, and Ibn-d-Vsiii,
on the sea of Aral, and on the biforoation of the Ozob and the AnoDBs^ ma|
Asie Centnle» T. ii. p. 168— JS97.

("^) p. 141.— Oramer de Stodiii qua Tetorea ad alianun gentinm eontolairf
lingnaa, 1844, p.8andl7. The ancient Colehiana appear to hare been identU
with the tribe of Laii (liaa, gentes Colchomm, Elin.¥i4 ; thoAoi'Mof^fai-
tine writers) ; see Yater (Professor in Kasan), der Azgonanteosng ans te
Onellen dargesteUt, 1845, HeftiS.84; Heft iL S. 46, 67, and 103. Ii .
the Cancasos, the names Alani (Alaoethi for the land of the AlauQ, Obb, a
ass, may still be heard. Aeoording to the investigationa eomme&oed ifiil
philosophic and lipgnisfcic acamea in the valleys of the Gaocaaoa by Geoge
Soae, the langoage spoken by the Lasi wooUL appear to eontainremaniaQf tti
ancient Colchian idi<Nn. The Iberian and Gmsie gronp of langnagesindnia
Lacian, Georgian, Soanian, and Mingrelian, aU belonging to the fiouily of Ik
Indo-Gemumic hmgoages. The language of the Oasetea ia nearer to tia
Gothic than to the lithnanian.

(^ p. 141.— On the relationship of the Scythiaaa (Soolotea or Saea),
Alani, Goths, Massa-GeUe, and the Yneti of the Chinese historians^ aee Bip
rotbi, in the oommentary to the Voyage da Comte Potodd, T. L p. 129, »
-well as my Asie Centrals, T. I p. 400; T. u. p. 252. Ftocopiiia hiaMtf
says y^ distinctly (De Bello Gothioo,ir. Sed. Bonn, 1888, YoL iL p.47V
that the Goths ^n«re formerly called Scythians. The identity of the Gets ai
the Goths has been shewn by Jacob Grimm in his reoeatiy-puUiAel
work, uber Jomandes, 1846, S. 21. Niebnhr believed ^ hiaUntenndiia*
gen uber die Geten and Saimaten, in his Ueinen histor. nnd philolo^^adiB
Schriften, Ite Sammlnng, 1828, S. 862, 864, and 895,) that the Scythaai
of Herodotns belong to the fiunily of the Mongolian tribes ; bnt this i^isioi
has the less probability, since these tribes, partly nnder the yoke of the CSSi
nesei, and partiy under that of the Hakas or Eiighis (Xc^is of Menaiide^
still lived £» in the east of Asia ronnd Lake Baikal in the begimung of tti
I3th century. Herodotus distinguishes, moreover, the bald-headed Aigqp-
paeans Qv. 23) from the Scythians; and if the first-named are said to la
« flat-nosed," they have at the same time '* a long chin," which, aeewrdiBgtt
my experience^ is by no means a physiognomic chaEaeteristm of the Gah»Mb

zliii

m otliflr Mongoluii nets^ bat rather duffactarises the Uonde (GfmumuiiigP)
Ouaun and Tmgling, to whom the Ghinese hiatoriaas atfcribate "long hone
laces."

(^ p. 141.--'0n the dweDing-pkce of the Azimaapea and the gold tnicte
of north'weatem Asia in the time of Herodotna, aee my Asie Centrale, T. i.
p. 389--407.

(^) p. l^L—^^'Lea Hyperhoi^na aoot va mythe m^t^cnologique. Le
Tent dea montagnea (KQzeaa) aort dea Monta Bhipeens. Andelk de eea
monta, doit legner mi air calme, mi dimat heurenz, comme amr lea sommeta
fllpins dana 1ft partie qm d^paaae lea Buagee. Ce aoni la lea premiers aper^
d'ime phyaiqne qui e]qpliqiie la diatribntum de la ehaleor et la difference dea
cHmata par dea canaea loeales, par la direetion dea Tenta qni dominent, par la
proximity da solei], par Taction d*mi prindpe hnmide oa salin. Xa cons^
qoenoe de cea id^ syatematiqaes ^tait ime oertaine independence qa'on sap-
posait cntre lea dimata et la ktitnde-dea lieox : ansai le mythe dea Hyper*
iior^ena li^ par aon origine an colte doiien et primitiTement bor^ d'ApQUon,
a pa ae d^plaoer da mod Yen Tooeat, en amTiiit Hercole dans ses ooorses asx
aooroes de Tlster, k l*ile d'Brythia et aoz Jardina des Hesp^des. Les Khipeii^
^ Monta Rhiptea, aont ansai vn. nom aignificatif m^t^Qrologiqae: ee sont
Ifitmontagnes de "rimpolsion," ou da souffle glace ipani) cellea d'oil se d>
diainent les templtes bor^ea" (Asie Centr. T. L p. 892 and 408).

(^ p. 142.— In Hindoatanee, aa Wilfoird haa already remarked, there an
two worda which night easily be confoonded ; one of which, tschiibtft» a large
black kind of ant (wbence the dimmntite tsohimiti, tschinti, the small com-
mon ant) ; the other tschitft» a spotted tklnd of panther, the little banting
leopard (cheetah; theFelis jabata, gchreb). The latter word (tschitA) is the
Sanscrit word tschitra, signi^ring variegated or spotted, aa is shewn by Hbe
Bengalee name for the animal (tachitftbAgh andischitibftgh, firom bdgh, Sanseiit
wydghra^ tiger.) — ^Baadimaan. A passage haa been recently disooTered in
the Mahahharatft ^, 1860) in which there is question of the ant-gold.
" Wilso inv^t (Joam of the Asiat. See. vii. 1848, p. 148,) mentionem fieri
etiam in Indicia litteris bestianun aorom effodientiam, qoas, quam terxam
«ffi>£ant, eodem nomine (pipUica) atqae foxmicas In^ noncapant.'* Compare
Schwanbeek, in Megasth; Indieis, 1846, p. 78. I hsTe been strack by
fleeing that in the basaltio districts, of the Hczioaa highlands the ante
eanry to their heaps ahining graina of hyalite, which I ooold collect oat of
the ant-hills,

^p.l45.— Stnbo,lib]ii.p.l72(Bdkh»Fi]uUFragm.y.l56). Theyiiyage

«f Colffoi of Samoa is placed in OL 81, aoeording to Otfir. MBller (Pfenhga-
mena sa einer wiasenachaftUdien Mytliologie) ; aod in OL S6, I, or tiie yetf
640, aooording to Letronne's ioTestigation (Easai aor lea ideea eoamo-
gnqphiqaca qni ae rattachent an nom d'Atlaa, p. 9). Tko epoch 1% however,
dependent on the foondation.of Cjrrene, which Otfir. MiiUer pkoea be-
tween OL 85 and 87 (Minyer, S. 844, Prolegomena, S. 63); forinths
time of Cobena (Herod. It. 152), the way firom Thera to Xybia waa atill mi-
known. Zompt plaoea the foundation of Carthage in 87S, and that of Gadei
In 1100 B.C.

(^ p. 146. — ^Aoeoiding to thn manner of the aneienti (SMbo, Ub. il p.
I26j I reckon (as indeed phjaieal and gecdogical views require) the wkb
£nzine, together with the Maotis, as forming part of tha common baaia cf
the great " Interior Sea."

C^ p. 146.~Herod. ir, 152.
• C'*) p. 146.-~Herod. . 163, where even the diaooveiy of Tarteaans is attri-
toted to the PhoeaMma ; but aooordiDg to Ukert (Geogr. d£ar Griecben aai
Bomer, Th.1. LS. 40), the eommerdal enterprise of tha nmcaeana waa wen^
jears later tban Cobena of Samoa.

(^ p. 146. — ^According to a firagment of Phayoriniis, tiie words (mc««i«^
•and therefore myifw also) are not Greek, but are bonowed from the baiin>
lians (Spohn de Nicephor. Blemm. dnobus opnseolia, 1818, p. 28). Xj
.brother thought that they were connected with the Sanscrit roota ogba nd
0£^ (see mj Examen critique de rhist. de la Geogr. T. L p. 88 and 182).

(8U) p, U7.— Aristot. de Codo, li. 14 (p. 298, b, Bekk.) ; Meteor. iLS
(p. 862, Bekk.) Compare mj Szamen critiqne^ T. i. p. 125— -180. Ssbm
▼entores to saj (Nat. Qnnst. in praefat. 11), oontemnet eoiiosas spedaftor
domicilii (terrse) angnstiaa. Quantum enim. eat qnod ab ultimis littorilni
TTiapaniaB uaquc ad ludoa jaoet? Paodsaimorum dieram apatiom, ai oavii
anua Tentua implevit (Examen critique, T. L p. 158).

(^ p. 147.-~Strabo, fib. L p. 65 and 118, Casanb. (Examen critiqiu^ Zl
p. 152.)

(OS) p, 147 _in the Biaphragma (the dividing line of the Earth) i
-Btoearchus, the elevation passes through the Taurus, the chains of Bemsvail
and Hindoo-koosh, the Kuen-liin of Northern Thibet, and the perpetoilllf
anow-dad doud mountains of the Chinese provinces, Sse-tschuan and Kuang-iL
See mj orographic researchea on these lines of election in mj Asie CeatnH
T. L p. 104—114, 118—164; T. ii. p. 413 and 488.
f^ p. 148.— Strabo, Ub. iiL p. 178 (Examen. crit. T. iii. p. 9^.

KOTB». xhr

(^ p. ISO.-^-'Broyien, Gesoh. Akiotiden des Groasen, S. 544; the same
in his Gesch. der Bilduog des heUeoistisclienL StaatensyBtems, S. 23-^84,
688—592, 748—755.

(^^ p. 150.— Aristot. Polit. Vn. vii. p. 1827, Bokker. (Compare also
in. xvi., and the remarkaUe peatage of Eratosthenes in Str&bo, lib. 1. p. 66
and 97, Gasanb.)

C«) p. 151.— Stahr, AristoteUa, Th. ii S. 114.

(^^ p. 151. — Ste. Croix, Examen eritiqae des hietonetts d^Aleiandre,
p. 731. (Schlegd, Ind. Bibliothek, Bd. i. S. 150.)

(^') p. 153. — ^Compare Schwanbedc *' de fide Megaathenis et pretio," in
his edition of that writer, p. 59 — 77. Megasthenes often fisited Palibothra,
the oonrt of the King of Magadha. He was fiiUy initiated in the system of
Indian chronology, and relates "how, in the past, the All had three times
come to freedom ; how three ages of the world had ran their conrae, and in
hii own time the fourth had begun." (Lassen, indische Alterthnmsknnde^
Bd. i. S. 510.) The Hedodie doctrine of four ages of the world, connected
with four great elementary destructions; which together occupy a period of
18028 years, existed also among the Mexicans* (Humboldt, Vues desCor-
dilleves et Monumens des peuples indigenes de TAmerique, T. ii. p. 119— -129.)
In modem times a remarkable proof of the aecuraey of Megasthenes has been
afforded by the study of the Bigveda and the Mahabharata. Consult what
Megasthenes says respecting " the land of the long-MTing happy persons" in
the extoeme north of India, — ^the land of tJttara-knru (probably north of
Kaahmeer, towards Bduitagh), which, according to his Grecian views, he con-
nects with the supposed " thousand years of life of the Hyperboreans." (Las-
sen, in the Zeitschrift fiir dieSmde des Mprgenlandes, Bd. ii. S. 6^.) We
may notice, in connection with this, a tradition mentioned in Ctesias, of a
sacred plaoe in the Northern Desert. (Ind. cap. Tiii. ed. Badir, p. 249 and
285.) Ctesias has been long too -little esteemed : the martichpras mentioned^
by Aristotle (Hist, de Animal. II. iii. 5 10 ; T. i. p. 51, Schneider), the grif^
fin, half eagle half lion, the kartazonon spoken of by iSlian, and a one-horned
wild ass, are indeed referred to by him as real animals ; but this was not an
invention of his own, bat arose, as Heeren and Cuvier have remarked, firom
his taking pctured forms of symbolical animals, seen on Persian monuments,
for the representation of strange beasts still Uving in India. The acute
Goignant has, however, noticed that there ia much difficulty in identi^ng tbt
martichoras with Persepolitan symbols, (Creozer, Beligions de TAntiquite;
notes et eclairclBsements^ p. 720*>

^ p. 154.-1 Intfe iDnflfented thflie intrfflnto ongnplileal iditioiii k
«j Am OentnlB, T. iL p. 48»— 484.
P) pa54.--lMWB,i]|tiiftIeitMliriftftrdMKii]idedMMargei^^
f*^ p. 156.— Tlie dntrirt betwMnBttiuaii and GUunl See Carl Zbiiacr-
BMDiii's eKodkBt flfognphieal tabular new of A%liaiiJafani, 1843. (Gompn
8tnbo» fib. XT. p. 785 ; Diod. SkiiL zriL 88; Memi, MdeteBL hist ISSfl^
p. 85 and 81 ; Bitter iiber Akomdors Eeldnig am Tndiaehen KanLkaaoa^ iatb
AUndL dv Bed. Akad. of tlia XBarl889, 8.150; Dnyaeii, BOdnngda
IttDeout. StaateDSTBtenu, 8. 614.) I wiite Piwopaiiiaaa, fike all the gool
aodicea of PtdflBBf , and ii0t FMnpaBuaoa. Ihave gifea the resBons iBBf
Ana CeatnJe, T. i p. 114—118. (See also Immb snr Geadu dor Gmb-
kdiai und laduakythudmi KBnige^ S. 188.)
P) p. 155.— Strabo» lih. xf. p. 717, CSttanlb.

P^ p. 155.— Tda, at tin Mme of the palm Botaania flabdttformis (ray
dianetcrifltieaUy tetmed hj Amanwmha "a kmg «f &e graasea^ ; Ania,
Ind.nL 8.

P) p. 155.— ThewordtabaadlriarefcRed to the Sanscrit tn^-beUn
(bark miQ[); see above, Note 148. In 1817, m the hirt<»ieal addenda tony
work Be Distribatioiie Geographiea Flantanm^ aeeimdnm Goefi, Temperiei
et Altitodinem Montinm, p. 815, 1 eiBed attention to the ihct, that tte eoo-
panionB of Alexander beeame aeqoaintad with the true sngar of the sopr
cane of the IndiaDB, aa weD ai with the tahaeehir of the bamboo. (Stnbo^
lib. XT. p. 698 ; PeripL maiia Srythi. p» 9.) Moses of Chorene, who find
in the middle of the 5th oentury, was the first who described eirenmstantiiBf
the preparation of sugar from the jmee of the Saocharom offidnaron, in tb
promce of Khorasan. (Geogr. ed. Whiakon* 1786, p. 864.)
^ p. 155.— Strabo, Ub. xr. p. 694.

^ p. 155.— Bitter, EMknnde too Asien, Bd.iy.tS. 487; 'Bd. Vli.
S. 698 ; Lassen, ind. Alterthmnakande^ Bd. I. 8. 817—828. The pasaige
in Aristotle's Hist, de AmmaL y. 17 (T. i p. 209, ed. Schneider), respectiog
the web of a great homed spider, rdates to the island of Cos.

("^ p. 156. — So Xkxkos xpMfw^'fVf, in the FieripL maris Erythr. p. S
(Lassen, S. 816.)

P) p. 155.— Pfin. Hist. Kat xri. 82. (On Hie introdnction of nn
plants from Asia into Egypt bj the Lagidn ; see Fliny, xii. 14 and 17.)
P) p. 156.— Hnmboldt, Be Distrib. Geogr. Plantarom, p. 178.
^) p. 156. — Since the year 1847, 1 have often cotrespondecl with lasa
an the remarkable passage in Pliny, xii. 6 .— '* Migor alia (arbor) fans ^

iroi»9. xhii

toavxtate pneoeHentior, qao ispienteft Tudonmi yinmt PoHom alas aTiiim

imitator, longltiidine trinitL eabitonun, latitndme danm. Enictnm «ortie«

mittit, admirabileia sued dnlcedine ufe quo qnaternos satiet. Aihon nomen

pala pomo arimaj* The fbllowing is the lesolt of the examination of mj

learned Mend; — " Amaramnha plaeee the haoana (mnsa) at the head of all

nntritive plants. Among the many SanMcii names whieh he mentions, are,

Taranaba8di% hhannphala (sun firuit), and mokoi, ivhence the Arabie manaar

Thala (pala) is finiit in general; and it ia therefore only by a misnnderstand-

ing that it has been taken for the name of the plant. In Sanscrit varana

without bnscha is not the name oi the banana, although the abbreriation may

have belonged to the popular langnage. Vaiana wonld be in Greek ovof^oro,

which is certainly not very ht removed from ariena.'* (Compare Lassen,

ind. Alterthnmakonde, Bd. i. S. 262 ; my Sssai politique snr la Nouy. Eapagne,

T. ii. 1827, p. 382 ; Behtion hist. T. i. p. 491.) The chemical connection

of the nourishing amylnm with saoeharin was difined alike by Prosper Alpinns

and Abd-Afiatif, since they sooght to explain the origin of the banana by the

insertion of the sugar cane, or the sweet date frnit, into the root of the colo-

casia. (Abd-AUati^ fixation de Tilgypte, tradoit par Sikestre de Sacy, p. 2&

and 106.)

(^ p. 1&6. — Bespecting this epodi» eonsnii Wilhehn von Humboldt in
his work, iiber die Kawi-Spraehe nnd diie Verschiedenheit des menschlidien
SprachbaneS) Bd. i S. cd. and cdiv. ; Droysen, Geseh. Alexanders des 6r«
S. 547 ; and Hellenist. Staatensystem* S. 24.
p. 157.— Bante, Int if. ISO.

p. 157. — Compare Cnvier's assertions in the Kographie universelh^
T. il 1811, p. 458 (and unfortunatdy again repeated in the edition of 1848,
T. ii. p. 219), with Stahfs Aristotelia, Th. i S. 15 and 108.

f^) p. 157. — Cnvier, when eogaged on the life of Aristotle, believed ihA
the philosopher had aeccmipanied Alexander to Egypt, "whence," he says^
"the Stagyrite must have brought bade to Athens (01. 112, 2) all the matei»
rials for the Historia Animalinm." Subsequently, in 1880, Cuvier aban*
doned this opinion ; for after more examination he remarked, " that the de*
scriptions of i^Igyptian animals were not taken from the life, but from notieea
by Herodotus." (See also Cuvier, Histoire des sdenoes natureiles, public
par Magddeine de Saint Agy, T. i. 1841, p. 186.)

(^ p. 157. — ^Among these intenial indications may be enmnerated,*-the
statement of the perfect insulation ef the Caspian ; the notice of the greai
^met which appeared when Niponadros was Axdio% OL 109, 4 (according

llviii NOTES.

to Gonim), and wbidi n not to be oonfoanded with that whidi Heir m
Bognslawiki fan named the comet ci Ariatotle (seen when Asteoa wat Aidmi,
OL 101, 4; Ariitot. Meteor, fib. i eap. 6, 10 ; toI. i. p. 896, Idder; and
•uppoeed to be identical with the oometi of 1695 and 1843?) ; and ibo tiis
mention of the deitmetion ci the temple at Spheans, as well aa of a Inmr
rainbow, seen on two oocasbns in the oonrse of fifty jears. (Compare Sefanader
ad Aristot Hist, de Animalibii8» ToL L p. xl. xlii. dii. and exx. ; Idoier ai
Aristot. Meteor. VoL I. p. x. ; and HnmboLdt, Asia Gent. T. ii. p. 168.) We
know that the *' Histoixof Animal^" was written hter thantiie ** MeteorolO'
gica," since the last-named wwfc aUndes to the fanner aa aoon to foUov.
(Meteor, i. 1, 8; and iy. 18, IS.)

(^ p. 158. — ^The fife animals named in the text, and espedaDy tha

hippelaphns (horso-stag with a long mane), tiie hippardion, the Bactrias

camel, and the bnfUo* are addoeed by Cnvier as proofis of the Histom

Auimafinm having been written by Aristotle at a later period. (Hist, da

Sciences Nat. T. i p. 154.) Gnvier, in the fourth volnme of the BecherdM

snr lea Oasemens fossiles, 1828, p. 40-48 and p. 502, distingniahea betweea

two Asiatic stags with manes» which he calls C^rvns hippdaphus and Cema

ariatotelis. At first he regarded the C!eryu8 hippelaphns, of which he had aeoi

a living example, and of whidi Diard had sent him skins and antlers fnm

Sumatra, as Aristotle's hippelaphns from Arachosia, (Hist, de Animal., il %

^ 3, and 4, T. L p. 43-44, Sdmeider) : subsequently he jndged that a stag's head

sent to him from Bengal by Dnyancel, and the drawing of the entire laige

animal, agreed still better with the Stagirite's description of the hippdaphm;

and this stag, which is indigenous in the mountains of Sylhetin Bengal, ii

Nepanl, and in the country east of the Indus, then received the name d

Cervus aristotelis. If, in the same chapter in whidi Aristotle traita

generally of animals with manes, he names together with the horse-stag

(Equicervus), the Indian Guepard or hunting tifi^er (Felisjnbata). Sehneidff

(T. iii. p. 66) considers the reading wttpitow t« be preferaUe to that of n

tiinnp9io¥. The Ufter reading, as Pallas also thiuks, (SpieOeg. Zool. fiise. L

p. 4), would be best interpreted to mean the giraffe. If Aristotle had himseif

seen the Guepard, and not merdy heard it described, how can we suppose

that he would have fiiiled to notice non-retractile daws in a feHne aninul?

It is equally surprising how Aristotle, who is always so accurate, i^ aa

Ai^cuat Wilhehn you Schlegd maintains, he had a menagerie near Bis

residence at Athens, and had himself dissected an elephant which had bees

taken at Arbda» could have failed to describe a small opening near the templsi

KOTE&. Xlix

of the elephant, which, at certain seasons particularly; secretes a strong

toielling flnid, often allnded to by the Jndian poets. (Schlegel*s Indische

iBibliothek, Bd. i. S. 163-166.) I notice this apparently trifling circomstancd

thas particularly, becanse this small aperture was made known by accounts

^ven by Megasthenes, to whom, nevertheless, no one would be led to

attribute anatomical knowledge. (Strabo, lib. X7. p. 704 and 706, Casaub.)

I do not find in the different zoological works of Aristotle which have co)ne

down to us anything which necessarily implies his having had the opportunity

of observing living elephants, or of his having dissected a dead one. Although

it is most probable that the Historia Animalinm was completed before

Alexander's campaigns in Asia Minor, yet it is undoubtedly possible that the

work may, as Stahr supposes (Aristotelia, Th. il S. 98), have continued to

receive additions until the end of the Author's life, 01. 114, 3, three years

after the death of Alexander ; but direct evidence of such being the case is

wanting. The correspondence of Aristotle which we possess is not genuine,

(Stahr, Th. i. S. 194—208, Th. ii. S. 169-284), and Schneider says very

eonfidentl^, (Hist, de Animal. T. i. p. 40), "hoc enim tanquam certissimum

snraere mihi licebit scriptas comitum Alexandri notitias post mortem demum

regis fiiisse vulgatas."

(238) p. 158.— I have shewn elsewhere that although the decomposition of
suiphuret of mercury by distillation is described in Biosoorides, (Mat. Med.
V. 110, p. 667, Saracen) ; yet the first description of the distillation of a fluid,
(the distillation of firesh water firom sea water), is to be found in the Ck)m-
mentary of Alexander of Aphrodisias to Aristotle de MeteoroL ; see my
Examen critique de Thistoire de la Geographic, T. ii. p. 308-316, and Joannia
(Philoponi) Grammatici in libro de Generat. et Alexandri Aphrod. in Me-
teoroL Comm. Venet. 1527, p. 97. b. Alexander of Aphrodisias in Caria,
the learned commentator of the Meteorologica of Aristotle, lived, under the
reigns of Septimius Severus and Caracalla ; and although "In his writings
chemical apparatuses are called xwiico o^cofo, yet a passage in Plutarch (de
Iside et Osir, c. 33), proves that the word Chemie, applied by the Greeks to
the Egyptian art, is not to be derived from x««» (Hoefer, Histoire de la
Chimie, T. i. p. 91, 195 and 219, T. ii. p. 109).

(239) p. 158.— Compare Sainte-Croix, Examen des historiens d'Alexandre^
1810, p 207, and Cuvier, Histoire des Sciences naturelles, T. i. p. 187, with
Schneider ad Aristot. de Historift Animalium, T. i. p. 42-46, and Stahr,
Aristotelia, Th. i. S. 116-118. If the transmission of specimens from Egypt
and the interior of Asia appears according to these authorities to be veiy

vol.. II. 2 E

1 NOTES.

improbable, yet tbe latest writings of onr greai anatomist Johannes Milller
shew with what wonderful acateness and delicacy Aristotle dissected the fishes
of the Greek seas. See the learned treatise of Johannes Miiller on the ad-
herence of the egg to the uterus in one of the two species of the genus Mus-
telus living in the Mediterranean, which in its fcetal state possesses a plaeenta
of the vitelline vesicle which is connected with the uterine placenta of the mo-
ther ; and his researches on the yti\€os Xccos of Aristotle in the AbhaodL
der Berliner Akad. aus d. j. 1840, S. 192-197. (Compare Aristot. Hist.
Anim. vi. 10, and de Gener. Anim. iii. 3.) The fineness of Aristotle's own ana*
tomical examinations is testified by the distinction and detailed analysis of the
species of cuttle-fish, the description of the teeth of snails, and the organs of
other Gasteropodes. Compare Hist. Anim. iv. 1 and 4, with Lebert ia
Mtdler's Archiv der Physiologic, 1846, S. 463 and 467. I have myself in
1797 called the attention of modem naturalists to the form of snails* teeth.
See my Versuche iiber die gereizte Muskel und Nervenfaser, Bd. 1. S. 261.

(^ p. 159. — Yaler. Maxim, vii. 2; " ut cum regeautrarissime aut qoam
jocnndissinie loqueretur.'*

(2*0 p. leO.—Aristot. Polit. i. 8, and Eth. ad Eudemum, viL 14.

(^ p. 160.— Strabo, lib. xv. p. 690 and 695. Herod, iii. 101.

(^ p. 160.— Thus says Theodectes of Phaselis ; see Kosmos, Bd. L S. 380
and 491, (£ngl. trans. Vol. i. .352 and note 437). Northern countries were
placed to the West, and southern countries to the East. Consult Volojcer iiber
Homerische Geographic und Weltkunde, S. 43 and 87. The indefinitenesa^
even at that period, of the word Indies, as connected with geographical position,
with the complexion of the inhabitants, and with precious natural productions*
contributed to the extension of these meteorological hypotheses, for it wai
given at once to Western Arabia, to the countries between Ceylon and the
mouth of the Indus, to Troglodytic Ethiopia, and to the African myrrh and
cinnamon lands ^outh of Cape Aromata, (Humboldt, Examen crit. T. ii. p. 35)<

(»*) p. 161.— Lassen ind. Alterthumskunde, Bd. L S. 369, 372-375, S7«
and 389 ; Bitter, Asien, Bd. iv. 1, S. 446.

(^) p. 161. — The geographical distribution of numkind is not men ^
terminable in entire continents by degrees of latitude than that of plants and
animals. The axiom propounded by Ptolemy, (Geogr. lib. cap. 9), tbst
north of the parallel of Agisymba neither elephants, rhinoceroses, nor negroes
are to be met with, is entirely unfounded. (Examen critiq[ue, T. i. p. 39.)
The doctrine of the universal influence of soil and climate on the inteUectnal
capacities and dispositions, and on the civilisation of mankind, was pecoliar ts

KOTBS« li

Jie Alexandrian school of Ammonina Salckas, and especially to Longinns*
See Produs, Comment, in Tin^. p. 50.

(^) p. 161, — See Georg. Cnrtiiis, die Sprachrergleiclmng in ilirem Ver-
haltnisszur classichen Philologie, 1845, S. 5-7, and the same author's Bildung
der Tempora nnd Modi, 1846, S. 8-9< (Compare also Pott's Article entitled
Indogermanischer Sprachstamm in the AUgem. Encyklopadie of Ersch and
Grob^, Seet ii. Th. xviii S. 1-112.) Investigations on language in general,
as touching upon the fundamental relations of thought, are, however, to be
found in Aristotle, where he develops the connection of categories with
grammatical relations. See the luminous statement of this comparison in*
Adolf Trendelenburg's histor. Beitragen zur Philosophie, 1846, Th. i. S.
23—32.

(^ p. 162. — ^The schools of the Orchenes and Vorsipenes (Strabo, lib.
xvi. p. 739). In this passage, in conjunction with the Chaldean astronomers,
four Chaldean mathematicians are cited by name. This circumstance is
of the greats historical impoiiance, because Ptolemy always designates th^
observers of the heavenly bodies by the eoUective name of XoXSaioi, as if the
Babylonish observations were only made " collegiately" (Ideler, Handbuch der
Chronologic, Bd. 1. 1825, S. 198),

p«) p. 162.— Ideler, Handbuch der Chronologie, Bd. i. S. 202, 206, and
218. When doubts are raised respecting the fact of Callisthenes having sent
astronomical observations from Babylon to Greece, on the ground of " no
trace of these observations of a Chaldean priestly caste being found in the
writings of Aristotle," (Ddambre, pist. de TAstron. anc. T. i. p. 308), it is
forgotten that Aristotle, where he speaks (De Ccelo, lib. ii. cap. 12), of an occul-
tationof Marshy the moon observed by himself, expressly adds, that ''similar
observations had been made for many years on the other planets by the Egyp-
tians and the Babylonians, many of which have come to our knowledge." On
the probable use of astronomical tables by the Chaldeans, see Chasles, in the
Comptes rendus de 1' Academic des Sciences, T. zxiii. 1846, p. 852—854.

(2«) p. 163. — Seneca, Nat. Qrueest. vii. 17.
"(^ p. 163. — Compare Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 739, with lib. iii. p. 174.

(^) p. 163. — These investigations belong to the year 1824 (see Guignaut,
Religions de TAntiquit^ ouvrage traduit de TAUemand de F. Creuzer, T. i.
P. 2, p. 928). See farther, Letronne, in the Journal des Savans, 1839, p.
338 and 492 ; as well as the Analyse critique des fiepresentatious zodiacales
en Egypte, 1846, p. 15 and 84. (Compare with these Ideler uber den Ur-

!ii NOTES.

aprong des ThierkraBes, ia den Abluuidliiiigea der Akademie det Wiaen*
■eliBfteii la Bertin aus dem Jahr 1838» S. 21.)

(^ p. 168.~The mignifieent Cedrus deodvan (Kocmos, Bd. I 8.48;
Engl, trans. Vol. i. p. 868, note 4), whieh is moat abundant at an detatiog rf
firom eig^t to eleven thousand fset aa the npper Hydaspea (Belint), which ton
throogh the lake of the Alpine Tallej of Kaahmeer, aupplied the inateriab fif
the fleet of Nearchus (Bnrnes* Travels, Vol i. p. 69). The tranh of tin
cedar has often a drcomferenoe of forty feet» according to Dr. Hoffineister, of
whom scienoe has unhappily been deprived, by his death on a field ol bittle,
«rhen aooompaoying Prince Waldemar of Prussia.

(^ p. 168. — Lassen, in his Pentapotamia indica, p. 25, 29, 57 — 62, nd
77 ; and also in his indischen Alterthumakonde, Bd. i. S. 91. Between the
Sarasvati, to the north-west of Delhi, and the rocky Drisehadvati, there ii
situated, according to Menu's code of laws, Brahmavarta, a priestly distiiet
of Brahma, estaUished by the gods themselves ; on the other hand, in tk
more extensive sense of the word, Aryavarta, the land of the worthy, signiiies
in the ancient Indian geography, the whole country east of the Indus,
between the Himalaya and the Yindhya chain ; to the south of which tlie
ancient non-Arian aboriginal population commences. Madhya-Desa, the ceo*
tral land referred to in Kosmos, Bd. 1. S. 16 (English trans. Vol. L p. 14),
was only a portion of Aryavarta. Compare my Asie centrale, T. i. p. 204,
and Lassen, ind. Alterthumsk. Bd. i. S. 6, 10, and 98. The ancient IndiiB
free states, the countries of the kingless, (condemned by the orthodox easton
poets), were situated between the Hydraotes and the Hyphasis, i. e, the jn-
sent Ravi and the Beas.

(2**) p. 164. — ^Megasthenes, Indica, ed. Schwanbeck, 1846, p. 17.

(^) p. 167.-~See above, Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 155 (English trans. Vdii.
p. 121).

(^) p. 167. — Compare my geographical researches, Asie centrale, T. i
p. 145, and 151—157; T. ii. p. 179.

PO p. 168.— Plin. vi. 26 (?).

(^ p. 168. — Droysen, Gesch. des heHenistischen Staatensystems, S. 749.

^ p. 169. — Compare Lassen, indischa Alterthumakonde, Bd. i. S. 107,
)58, and 158.

(^ p. 169.— "Mutikted from Tftmbapanni. This Pali form sounds in
Sanscrit Tfilmrapami. The Greek Taprobane gives half the Sanscrit (Tftmbnb
Tapro), and half the Pali*' (Lassen, indische Alterthomskonde, S. 201 ; cooi

K0TE8. liil

pare Lassen, Diss. d« Taprobane insula, p. 19). The Laccadives (lakke for
lakscba, and dive for dwipa, one hundred thoasand islands), as well as the
>f .ildives (Malayudiba, t. «. islands of Malabar), were known to Alexandrian
navigators.

(^') p. 170. — Hippalus is supposed to have lived no earlier than the reign
O^ the Emperor Claudius ; but this is improbable, even though under the
first Lagidas great part of the Indian products were only purchased in Arabian
markets. The south-west moosoon was itself called Hippalus, and a portion
of the Eryihrean or Indian Ocean is also called the Sea of Hippalus. Letronne,
in the Journal des Savans, 1818, p. 405 ; Beinand, Relation des Voyages dana
rindc, T. i. p. xzx.

(^ p. 171. — See the researches of Letronne, on the constmotion of the
canal between the Nile and the Bed Sea from Nekn to the Caliph Omar, or
an interval of more than 1300 years, in the Bevne des deux Mondes, T. xxvii.
1841, p. 215 — 235. Compare aUo Letronne, de la Civilisation ^gyptienna
depuis Psammitichus jusqu'lL la eonqudte d' Alexandre, 1845, p. 16 — 19.

(^ p. 171* — Meteorological speculations on the distant causes of the
swelling of the Nile gave occasion to some of these joumies ; Philadelphns, aa
Strabo expresses it (lib. rvii. p. 789 and 790), " continually seeking new
diversions and interests out of ciuriosity and bodily weakness."

(^) p. 171. — Two hunting inscriptions, one of which "principally reoordi
the elephant hunts of Ptolemy Philaddphus," were discovered and copied by
Lepsius from the colossi of Abusimbel (Ipsambnl). (Compare, on this subject,
Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 769 and 770 ; iElian, De Nat. Anim. iii. 34, and xvii. 3 ;
Athenseus, y. p. 196.) Although, according to the " Periplus maris Ery-
thi'si," Indian ivory was an article of export from Baiygaza, yet, according
to the notices of Cosmas, ivory was also exported from Ethiopia to the
western peninsula of India. Since ancient times, elephants have withdrawn
more to the south in eastern Africa also. According to the testimony of
Polybius (v. 84), when African and Indian elephants enconntered each other
on fields of battle^ the sight, the smeQ, and the cries of the larger and
stronger Indian elephants drove the African ones to flight. The latter were
never employed as war elephants in soch large nnmbers as were used in
Asiatic expeditions, where Chandragupta had assembled 9000, the powerful
king of the Prasii 6000, and Akbar as many (Lassen, ind. Alterthumskunde,
Bd. i. S. 305—307).

(») p. 171.— Atheu. xiv. p. 654; compare Parthey, das alexsadrinisehe
Museum, eine Preisschrift> S. 55, and 171.

P") p. 172. — Tlie library in the Bruchinm was the more ancient; it wii
destroyed in the burning of the fleet under Jnlios Caesar. The Hbraiy at
Bhakotis made part of the " Serapenm/' where it was combined with the
mnsenm. By the liberality of Antoninus, the collection of books at Pefgamos
was inoorporated with the library of Bhakotis.

<^ p. 173.~yacherot, Histoiie critique de I'Ecole d'Alexandrie, 1846,
T. i. p. Y. and 108. We find much evidence in antiquity, that the institute
of Alexandria, like all academical coiporations, together with much good
arising from the concurrence of many workers, and from the power of obtain-
ing material aids, had also some disadvantageous narrowing and restraining
influence. Hadrian made his tutor, Vestiuus, High Priest of Alexandria, and
at the same time Head of the Museum (or President of the Academj)
(Letionue, Becherches pour servir k THistoire de PEgypte pendant la domi*
nation des Grecs et des Bonuiins, 1828, p. 251).

(«) p. 173.— Fries, Geschichte der Philosophic, Bd. ii. S. 5. ; and the
same anthor's Lehrbuch der Naturlehre, Th. i. 8.^42. Compare also Consi-
derations on the Influence which Plato exercised on the Foundation of the
Experimental Sciences by the application of Mathematics, in Brandis, Ge-
schichte der griechisch-iomischen Philosophic, Th. ii. Abth. I. S. 276.

(^ p. 174. — On the physical and geognostical opinions of Eratostheaes,
•ee Strabo, lib. i. p. 49 — 56, lib. ii. p. 108.

fO p. 174. — Strabo, lib. xi. p. 519 ; Agathem. in Hudson, Geogr. Giw.
Min'. Vol. ii. p. 4. On the correctness of the grand orographic views of
Eratosthenes, see my Asie centrale, T. i. p. 104 — 150, 198, 208''227,
418—415, T. ii. p. 367, and 414^485 ; and Examen critique de THist de
la Geogr. T. i. p. 152 — 154. 1 have purposely called Eratosthenes' messon-
ment of a degree the first HeUemo one, as a very ancient Chaldean determi-
nation of the magnitude of a degree in camels' paces is not improbable. See
Chasles, Becherches sur I'Astronomie indienne et chaldeenne, in the Conipteg
rendus de I'Acad. des Sciences, T. xxiii. 1846, p. 851.

(^*) p. 175. — The latter appellation appears to me the more correct, as
Strabo, lib. xri. p. 789, cites *' Seleucos of Seleucia, among several very
honourable men, as a Chaldean well acquainted with the heavenly bodies."
Probably Seleucia on the Tigris, a flourishing commercial city, is here meaat.
It is indeed singular, that the same Strabo speaks of a Seleucus as an ezaet
observer of the ebb and flood, calling him alsp a Babylonian (lib. i. p. 6), and
subsequently (lib. iii. p. 174), perhaps from carelessness, an Eiythreau.
(Compare Stobaus, Ed. phys. p. 440.)

NOTES. It

pS) p. 175. — ^Tdder, Handbtujli der Chronologie, Bd. i. S. 212 and S29.
P') p. 176. — Delambre, Histoire de rAstronomie ancienne, T. i. p. 290.
(^*) p. 176. — Bokh has examined in his Philolaos, S. 118, whether the
Pythagoreans we^re early acquainted, through Egyptian sources, with the pre-
cession, under the name of the motion of the heaven of the tixed stars. Letronne
(Obserrations sur les Representations zodiacales qui nous restent de I'Anti-
quite, 1824, p. 62) and Ideler (Handbuch der Chronol. Bd. i. S. 192) vindi-
cate Hipparchus's exclusive claim to this discovery.
(27«) p. 177.— Ideler on Eudoxus, S. 23.
(^) p. 177. — The planet discovered by Le Verrier.
C^7) p. 178.— Compare Kosmos, Bd. u. S. 141, 146, 149 and 170 (Engl,
trans. Vol. ii. p. 106, 111, 114, and 136).

C^ p. 179.— Wilhdm von Humboldt iiber die Kawi-Sprache, Bd. i. S.
xixvii.

(*^ p. 180. — The superficial extent of the Roman Empire under Augustus
(according to the boundaries assumed by Heeren, in his Geschichte der Staateu
des Alterthoms, S. 408—470) has been calculated by Professor Berghaus, the
author of the excellent Physical Atlas, at rather more than 100000 (German)
geographical square miles. This is about a quarter greater than the extent of
1600000 square miles assigned by Gibbon, in his History of the Depline and
;IViIl of the Roman Empire, Vol. i. Chap. i. p. 39, but which he indeed says
must be taken as a very uncertain estimate.
(») p. 181.— Veget. de Re Mil. iii. 6.

(28») p. 181. — Act. ii. V. 371, in the celebrated prophecy which, from the
time of Columbus' son, was interpreted to relate to the discovery of America.
(282) p. 182.— Cuvier, Hist, des Sciences naturelles, T. i. p. 312—328.
(^ p. 182.— Liber Ptholemei de Opticis sive Aspectibus ; the rare manu-
script of the Royal Library at Paris (No. 7310), was examined by me on the
occasion of discovering a remarkable passage on the re&action of rays in
Sextus Empiricus (adversus Astrologos, lib. v. p. 351, Pabr.) The extracts
which I made from the Parisian manuscript in 1811 (therefore before
Delambre and Venturi) are given in the introduefcion to my Recueil d'Obser- ,
vations astronomiqnes, T. L p. Ixv. — ]xx, Tht Ghreek original has not come
down to US; we have only a Latin translation of two Arabic manuscripts of
Ptolemy's Optics. The Latin translator gives his name as Amiracus Enge-
nius, Siculus. Compare Venturi, Comment, sopra la Storia e le Teorie
deir Ottica, Bologna, 1814, p. 227 ; Del&mbre, Hist, de TAstronomie an-
cieune, 1817, T. i. p. 51. and T. il p. 410—432.

lyi NOTES.

(^ p. ISS.^Lflfcrauie thews, from the fanatical minder of the daa^ita
jf Theon of Alexandria, that the much contested period of Diopihantiu caimQt
fall later than the year 389 (Sur TOrigine greoqna det Zodiaques jneteMhi
^tiens, 1837, p. 26).

(^) p. 184. — ^This beneficial influence of the extension of a kngnage nu
finely noticed in Pliny's praise of Italy : " omninm terramm alumna eaden
et parens, nnmine Defim electa, qose sparsa congregarei imperia, ritoaqoe
moUiret, et tot popolomm discordes fierasqae lingnas sermonis oomracfeio
contraheret, colloqaia, et humanitafem homini daret, breviterqne mia euoe-
taram gentiom in toto orbe patria fieret" (Plin. Hist. nat. iii. 5).

P) p. 186.—K]aproth, Tableaox historiqne de TAsie, 1826, p. 65—67.

(^ p. 186. — To this fikir-haired, blue-eyed, Indo-germanic, Gothic, or
Arian race of eastern Asia, bdoDg the Usiin, Tingling, Hatis, and great Toeti.
The last are called by the Chinese writers a Thibetian Nomade race;, wlu^
800 years before our era, migrated between the upper course of the Hoang-ho
and the snowy mountains of Nanschan. I here recal this descend as the Sera
are also described as " rutilis comis et ceernleis oculis" (compare Ukert, Gepgr.
der Griech. und Bomer, Th. ii i. Abth. ii. 1845, S. 275). We owe to tiic
researches of Abel Remusat and Elaproth, which are among tlie brilliant hit-
torical discoveries of our age, the knowledge of these fair-haired races, wbie^
in* the most eastern part of Asia, gave the first impulse to what has bees
called " the great migration of nations.*'

(^ p. 187. — Letroune, in the Observations crit. et areh^oL sor ki
Representations zodiacales de TAntiquite, 1824, p. 99, as well as in his later
work, Sur TOrigine grecque des Zodiaques pretendus ^gyptiens, 1837, p. 27.

(^ p. 187. — The sound investigator, Colebrooke, places Warahamihin in
the fifth, Brahmagupta at the end of the sixth century, and Aryabhatta rather
undecidedly between 200 and 400 of our era. (Compare Holtzmann uber
deu griechischen Ursprung des iudischen Thierkreises, 1841, S. 23.)

(^ p. 187. — On the reasons on which the assertion in the text of the ex-
ceedingly late commeucement of Strabo's work rests, see Groskurd's (knium
translation, 1831, Th. i. S. xvii.

(2«i) p. 188.— Strabo, lib. i. p. 14; Kb. ii. p. 118 ; lib. xvi. p. 781; lib.
xvii. p. 798 and 815.

(^ p. 188. — Compare the two passages of Strabo, lib. i. p. 65, and lib.
a, p. 118 (Humboldt, Examen critique de I'Hist. de la Greographie, T. i. p.
152 — 154). In the important new edition of Strabo published by Gostsv
Kramer, 1844, Th. i. p. 100, " the parallel of Athena ia read instead of tht

y&TBS. Ivii

t parallel of Thins, as if Thinft had first been named in the Psendo-Arrian, in
I the Periplas Maris Rabri." Dodwell places the writing of the Periplus under
, Marcns Aurelins and Lncins Vems, but according to Letronue it was written
under Septimins Sevems and Garacalla. Although in five passages in Strabo
, all our manuscripts read ThinsB, yet lib. ii. p. 79, 86, 87, and above all 82,
, in which Eratosthenes himself is named, are decisive in &vour of the parallel
, of Athens and Rhodes. Athens and Rhodes were thus confounded, as old
geographers made the peninsula of Attica extend too fiir towards the south.
It would also appear surprising, supposing the usual reading Birvv kvk\o$
to be the correct one, that a particular parallel, the Diaphragm of Dicearchus^
should be called aft» a place so little known as Sinee (Tsin). HowereTt
Cosmas Indicopleustea connects his Tadnitza (ThinsB) with the chain of moun-
tains which divides Persia and the Romanic lands and the whole habitable
world into two parts, adding the remarkable observation, that this is accord*
ing to the "belief of the Indian philosophers and Brahmins/' Compart
CkMmas, in Mont&ucon, Collect, nova Patrum, T. ii. p. 137 ; and my Asie
oentrale, T. i. p. xxiii. 120—129, and 194—203, T. ii. p. 413. The Pseudo*
Arrian, Agathemeros, according to the learned investigations of Professor
Franz, and Cosmas, decidedly ascribe to the metropolis of the Sinse a very
northern latitude, nearly in the parallel of Rhodes and Athens; whereas
Ptolemy, misled by the accounts of mariners, speaks solely of a Thinse three
degrees south of the equator (Geogr. i. 17). I suspect that Thiua: merely
meant, generally, a Chinese emporium, a harbour in the land of Tsin ; and
that therefore one ThiniB (Tzinitza) may have been intended north of the
equator, and another south of the equator.

(2W) p. 188.— Strabo, Ub. i. p. 49—60, Ub. ii. p. 95 and 97. lib. vi. p
277 ; lib. zvii. p. 830. On the elevation of islands, and of the continent, sea
particularly lib. i. p. 51, 54^ and 59. The old Meat Xenophanes was led, by
the numerous fossil marine productions found at a distance from the sea, ta
conclude that "the present dry ground had been raised from the bottom of tha
sea" (Origeu, Philosophumena, cap. 4). Appuleius, in the time of Antoninus^
collected fossils from the Gietulian (Mauritauian) mountains, and ascribed
them to the flood of Deucalion, considering it to have been universal. Pro-
fessor Franz, by means of very careful investigation, has refuted Beckmann'i
and Cuvier's belief, that Appuleius possessed a collection of specimens of
natural history (Beckmann's Gescfa. der Erfindnnger» Bd. ii. S*870; and
Cuvier's Hist, des Sciences naturelles).
(»*) p. 189.— Strabo, lik »vii. p. 810.

njii Kons.

(^ p. 190.— Owl Hitter, Asien, Th. t, S. 560.
' ("*) P- 190. — See a ooUeetion of the most strikiiig iostsnees of Gifdai
Boman errors, in respect to the directions ci different diudns of mooBtn
in the introdnction to mj Asie eentrale, T. i. p. zxxvii. — ^zl. Hott ti^
tory iuTestigations, respecting the nnoertaintj of the nnmericsl lum ^
Ptolemy's positions, are to he found in a treatise of Ukert, in the Bheiniab
Mosenm Inr Phiblogie, Jahrg. vi. 1838, S. 314— S24.
. (^ p. 191.--For examples of Zend and Sanserit words whidi ktie \o
preserred to ns in Ptolemy's Geography, see Lassen, Diss, de Tqin^
insola, p. 6, 9, and 17 ; Bamouf*s Comment, snr le Ya^na, T. i. p. mi.-fB-
and dzxxi. — dzxcv. ; and my Examen crit. de I'Hist. de U Geogr. T.if
45—49. In few cases Ptolemy gives hoth the Sanscrit names and their #
Bifications, as for the island of Java V barley island," la/So&ov. • fV"
mpibiis pnvosy Ptol. vii. 2 (Wilhelm ▼. Hnmboldt uber die Kawi-Spnebc ^
L S. 60—63). The two^stalked barley (Hoidenm distichon) is, aceordiig ^
Biischmann, still termed in the principal Indian languages (HiDdBBta<4
Bengalee and Nepaolese, Mahratta, Cingalese, and the language of Gnxo").
as well as in Persian and Malay, yava, djav, or ^wbl, and in the IsDgatft «
Orissa, yaa. (Compare the Indian versions of the Bible in the passage Job
▼i. 9 and 13 ; and Ainslie, Materia Medica of Hindostan, Madras, ISUf
217.)

(») p. 191.— See my Examen ciit. de I'Hist de la Geogr8plue,T.iLF
147—188.

(2») p. 192.— Strabo, Hb. xi, p. 606.

(^ p. 192.^Menander de Legationibas Barbaromm ad BontfM ^
Bomanorum ad Gentes, e ree. Bdckeri et Niebohr, 1829, p. 300, 619, 62^
and 628.

(»») p. 192.— Plutarch de I^ide in Orbe Lunas, p. 921, 19 {«m^^
Examen crit. T. i. p. 145 — 191), I have met, among highly-info™*^
sians, with a repetition of the hypothesis of Agesianaz, according to whick,
marks on the lunar surface, in which Plutarch (p. 935, 4) thoogM ^ '"
*'a peculiar kind of shining mountains" (P volcanoes), were wxs^
eflected images of terrestrial lands, seas, and isthmuses. My Persian friesw
said, " what they shew us through telescopes on the snr&oe of the moo"
only the reflected images of our own countries."
. («») p. 192.— Ptolcm. Ub. iv. eap. 9 ; lib. vii. oi^ 8 and 5. C^
Letroune, in the Jom-nal des Savans, 1831, p. 476—480, and 545-^^^'
Humboldt, Examen crit. T. i. p. 144, 161, and 829 ; T. iL p. S70--^^*

^ p. 193. — ^Delambre, Hist, de rAstronomie ancienne, T. i. p. lir.; T. ii.
p. 561. Theon never makes -any mention of Ptolemy's Optics, although Jub
lived ftiUy two centuries after him.

(**) p. 193.— In reading ancient works on physics, it is often dilBcult to
decide whether a particular result followed from a phenomenon purposely
caQed forth, or accidentally observed. When Aristotle (De Coslo, iv. 4) treats
of the weight of the atmosphere, which, however, Ideler appears to deny his
having done (Meteorologia Veterum Grsoorum et Romanonim, p. 23), he
says distinctly that a " bladder when blown out is heavier than an empty
bladder." The experiment, if actually tried, must have been made with con-
densed air.

(^^) p. 193. — Aristot. de Anim. ii. 7 ; Biese, die Philosophic des Aristot.
Bd. ii. S. 147.

(**) p. 194. — Joannis (Philoponi) Grammatici in Libr. de Grenerat. and
Alexandri Aphrodis. in Meteorol. Comment. (Venet. 1527,) p. 97, b. Com*
pare my Examen critique, T. ii. p. 306 — 312.

(^) p. 194. — ^The Numidian Metellas had 142 elephants kiUed in the
drcus. In the games given by Pompey, 600 lions and 406 panthers were
shewn. Augustus sacrificed 3500 wild beasts in the festivities which he gave
to the people ; and a tender hu-^hnnd laments that he could not celebrate the
day of his wife's death by a sanguinary gladiatorial fight at Verona, "because
contrary winds detained in port the panthers which had been bought in
Africa" I (Plin. Epist. vi. 34.)

(*8) p. 195. — Compare Note 293. Yet Appuleins, as Cuvier recals (Hist.
des Sciences naturelles, T. i. p. 237), was the first to describe accurately the
bony hook in the second and third stomach of the Aplysis.

(^) p. 198. — "Est enim animorum ingeniorumque naturale quoddam
quasi pabulum consideratio contempladoque naturee. Erigimur, elatiores
fieri videmur, humana despicimus, cogitantesqne snpera atque ccelestia hsDC
nostra, ut exigua et minima, oontemnimus" (Cic. Acad. ii. 41).

(»W) p. 198.— Pun. xxxvii. 13 (ed. Siflig. T. v. 1836, p. 320). All ear-
lier editions terminated with the words *' Hispaniam qviennque ambitu man.**
The conclusion of the work was discovered in 1831 in a Bamberg Codex, by
Herr Ludwig v. Jan, Professor at Schweinfurt.
C'*) p. 199. — Ckudian in secundum consulatnm Stilichonis, v. 150 — 155.
(3^) p. 200.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 385 and 492, Bd. ii. S. 25 (Eng. trans.
Vol. i. p. 356, and note 443, Vol. ii. p. 26). Compare also Wilhelm von
Humboldt iiber die Kawi-Spraohe, Bd. 1 S. xxxviii.

Ixii KOTBS.

Maornnanft Cahahttanto of MAoritania) "Indians who had come with Her*
ooles."

m P- 209.— Died. Sic. Ub. u. cap. 2 and 8.

C*) p. 209. — CtesiiB Cnidii Operum reliquisB, ed. Baehr., FngmeDti
Aasyriaca, p. 421 ; .and Carl Miiller, in Dindorf's edition of Herodotus, Par.
1844, p. 13—15.

(™) p. 210. — Gibbon, Hist, of the Dedine and Fall of the Roman EmpiR^
Vol. ix. chap. i. p. 200, Leips. 1829.

^ p. 210.— Humboldt, Asie centr. T. ii. p. 128.

(^ p. 211. — Jourdain, Recherches critiqaes sor I'Age des Tradoctioos
d'Aristote, 1819, p. 81 and 87.

(^ p. 214. — ^Respecting the knowledge which the Arabiana derived firom
the Hindoos, in the stndyof the materia medica,8ee Wilson's important iiiFetiti-
gations, in the Oriental Hsgazine of Calcutta, 1823, Feb. and March; and
those of Boyle, in his Essay on the Antiquity of Hindoo Medicine, 1837, p.
56 — 59, 64 — 66, 73, and 92. Compare an account of Arabic pharmseeotie
writings, translated firom Hindoetanee, in Ainslie (Madras edition), p. 289.

O p. 215.— Gibbon, VoL ix. chap. li. p. 892 ; Heeren, GescL des
Stadiums der dassischen litteratur, Bd. i. 1797, S. 44 and 72 ; Sacy, Abd-
Allatif, p. 240; Parthey, das alexandrinische Musenm, 1838, S. 106.

(^ p. 216. — ^Heinrich Bitter, Gesch. der christlichen Philoeophie^ TL iiL
1844, S. 669—676.

C°) p. 217. — The learned Orientslist, Beinand, in three late wiitingi,
which shew how mnch may still be derived from Arabic and f ersian, as well
as Chinese sources ; Fragments arabes et persans inedits relatifs a Tlnde aa-
t^rieurement an Heme Siecle de TEre chretienne, 1845, p. xx. — ^xxxiiL;
Belation des Voyages faits par les Arabes et les Persans dans Tlnde et a Is
Chine dans le 9eme Siecle' de notre Ere, 1845, T. i. p. xl?L ; Memoire geog.
et hist, sur Tlnde d'apres les Ecrivains arabes, persans et chinois, anterieuie-
ment an milieu du onzieme Siecle de TEre chretienne, 1846, p. 6. The
second of these memoirs is based on the &r less complete treatise of tb» Abbe
Benandot, entitled " Andennes Belations des Indes, et de la Chine, de deox
Yoyageurs mahometans," 1718. The Arabic manuscript contains only one
notice of a Toyage, viz. that of the merchant Soleiman, who embarked on tk
Persian Gulf in the year 851 ; to which is added, what Abu-Zeyd-Hassan, of
Syraf in Farsistan, who had never travelled to India or China, could
from other weU-informed merchants.

NOTES. Iyi'ii

(^ p. 217.— Reinaud et Favl du Fea gregeois, 1845, p. 200.

P®) p. 217. — ^Ukert, iiber Marinas Tyrius aud Ptolemans, die Geographen,
in the Rheinischen Museum fur Philologie, 1839, S. 329—332; Gilde-
meister de rebus Indicis, Pars 1, 1838, p. 120 ; Asie centrale, T. ii. p. 191.

(33*) p. 217.— The "Oriental Geography of Ebn-Haukal," which Sir
William Ouseley published in London in 1800, is that of Abu-Ishak el-
Istachri, and, as Frahn has shewn (Ibn Fozlan, p. ix. xxii. and 256 — 263),
is half a century older than Ebn-Haukal. The maps which accompany the
" Book of Climates" of the year 920, aud of which there is a fine manuscript
copy in the library of Gotha, have been very useful to me in what I have
written on the Caspian Sea and the Sea of Aral (Asie centrale, T. ii. p.
192 — 196). We now possess an edition of Istachri, and a German transla-
tion ; (liber Climatum, ad similitudinem codicis Grothani delineandum, cur.
J. H. Moeller, Goth. 1839; Das Buch der Lander, translated from the
Arabic by A. D. Mordtnumn, Hamb. 1845).

(^) p. 217. — Compare Joaquim Jose da Costa de Macedo, Memoria em
que se pretende provar que os Arabes nfto conhecerfto as Canarias antes doa
Portuguezes, Lisboa, 1844, p. 86—99, 205—227, with Humboldt, Examen
crit. de THist. de la Geographie, T. ii. p. 137 — 141.

C^) p. 218. — Leopold von Ledebur, iiber die in den baltischen Landem
gefimdenen Zeugnisse eines Handels-Verkehis mit dem Orient zur Zeit der
arabischen Wdtherrschaft, 1840, S. 8 and 75.

(^ p. 218. — The determinations of longitude which Abul-Hassan All of
Morocco, an astronomer of the 13th century, has incorporated ^ith his work
on the astronomical instruments of the Arabs, are all computed from the
first meridian of Arin. M. SediUot fils first directed the attention of geo*
graphers to this meridian ; it has also been an object of careful research to
myself, becaase Columbus, bemg as always guided by Cardinal d'Ailly's
Imago Mwidi, in his phantasies respecting the difference of form whiqh he
supposes between the eastern and western hemisphere, speaks of an Isla de
Arin : centro de el hemispherio del qual habla Tolom^ y ques debazo la
linea equinoiial entre el Sino Arabico y aquel de Persia. (Compare J. J.
SediUot, Tndte des Instrumens astronomiques des Arabes, publ. par L. Am.
Sedillot, T. i. 1834, p. 812—318, T. ii. 1835, prefece, with Humboldt's
Examen crit. de THist. de k G^gr. T. iii. p. 64, and Asie centrale, T. iii. p.
693 — 596, where will be found the data which I derived from the Mappa
Mundi of Alliacus of 1410, in the " Alphonsine Tables," 1483, and in
Madrignano's Itinerorium Portugallensium, 1508. It is singular that Edrisi

NOTES.

a].<I>i ars to know nothing of Khobbet Vrin (Ganoadon^ more properly Kaak«
der). S«dillot lilt (in the Memoire sui: lea Syst^mes geographiqaes da Ones
KL des Arabes, 1842, p. 20 — 25) places the meridian of Ann in the group d
the Azores ; whereas the leamed commentator of Abulfeda, Beinand (Me-
moire sor rinde anterienrement an Heme Siede de r£re chr^tienne, d'apitt
les Ecrivains arabes et persans, p. 20 — 24), assomes "Ann to ha?e beesi
name originating by confusion with Azyn, O/ein, and Odjein, an oU
scat of cultivation: according to Bnmoo^ Ucyijayani in Malwa 0{vn
of Ptolemy ; and that this Ozena is in the meridian of Lanka, and tint ii
later times Arin was beUeved to be an island on the coast of Zangnebar, per-
haps Eo-tfivor of Ptolemy." Compare also Am. Sedillot, Mem. snr les lastr.
astron. des Arabes, 1841, p. 75.

(*^ p. 218. — The Caliph Al-Mamnn caused many Talnable Greek masa-
scripts to be pwrchased in Constantinople, Armenia, Syria, and Egypt, and to
be translated direct firom Greek into Arabic, the earlier Arabic vcrsioDS
having long been founded on Syrian transbtions (Jonrdain, Recherches cnt.
sur I'Age et sur TOrigine des Traductions latines d*Aristote, 1819, p. 85, S^
aod*226). Al-Mamun's exertions have resened much which, without the
Arabians, would have been lost to us. A similar service has been rendered by
Armenian translations, as Neumann of Munich has first shewn. UnhappOi
a notice by the historian Genri of Bagdad, preserved to ns by the celebrated
geographer Leo Africanus, in a memoir entitled. " De Viris inter Araba
illustribus," gives reason to believe, that at Bagdad itself many Greek
originals, supposed to be useless, were burnt ; but no doubt this passage does
not relate to important manuscripts already translated. It is capable of more
interpretations than one, as has been shewn by Bemhardy (Grnndriss der
^iechen Litteratur, Th. i. S. 489), in opposition to Heeren's Geschichte der
elassisehen Litteratur, Bd. i. S. 135. The Arabic translations of Aristotle
have often been made useful in executing Latin ones {e. g. the eight books A
Physics, and the History of Animals) ; but the larger and better part of tLe
Latin translations have been made direct from the Greek (Jourdain, Bedb
crit. sur TAge des Traductions d'Aristote, p. 230 — 236). We may recognue
an allusion to the same twofold source in the memorable letter which the
Emperor Frederick II. of Hohenslaafen sent with translations of Aristotle
to his universities, and especially to that of Bolognain 1232. This letter containi
the expression of noble sentiments, and shews that it was not only the lore
of natural history which taught Frederick II. to appreciate the philosophical
value of the " Compilationes varies quee ab Aristotde aliisque philosopbii

2T0TES. Ixt

'«a¥ Gneeb Anbidsqiie Vbcabulis Antiquitiis editn simt.** He writes : " Wf
.We from our earliest youth desiied a closer Acquaintance with science^
although the cares of govemment have withdrawn ns therefrom. As &r as
we could, we delighted in spending our time in the careful reading of excellent
works, to the end that the mind might be enlightened and strengthened bj
exercises, withont which the life of man is wonting both in mle and in free*
dom (ut animsB darins vigeat instrumentum in aoquisitione scientise, sine qua
mortalium vita non regitur liberaliter). libros ipsos tamquam pneminm
amici Caisaris gratulantur acciinte, et ipsos antiqms philosophorum operibud,
qui vods ve8tr8& ministerio reviviscnnt, aggregantes in auditorio vestro," ....
(Compare Jourdain, p. 169 — 17S, and Fricdrich von Raumer*s excellent
Geschichte der Hohenstaufen, Bd. iii. 1841, S. 4)13.) The Arabs formed a
uniting Unk between ancient and modern science: without their love of
translation, succeeding ages would have lost great part of that which the
Greeks had either formed themselveii, or derived from other nations. It is in
this point of view that the subjects which have been touched upon, though
seemingly purely linguistic, have a general cosmical interest.

(^) p. 218. — Michael Scot's translation of Aristotle's Historia Anima-
lium, and a similar work by Avicenna (Manuscript No. 6493 in the Paris
Library), are spoken of by Jourdain, Traductions d'Aristote, p. 135 — 138,
and by Schneider, Adnot. ad Aristotells de Animalibus Hist. lib. ii. cap. 15.

{^ p. 218. — On Ibn-Baithar, see Sprengd, Gesch. der Arzneykunde, Th.
ii. 1823, S. 468 ; and Boyle on the Antiquity of Hindoo Medicine, p. 28.
We possess, since 1840, a German translation of Ibn-Baithar, under the title
Grosse Zusammenstellung iiber die Krafte der bekannten einfachen Heil- und
Kahrungs-mittel, translated from the Arabic by J. v. Sontheimer, 2 vols.

(**') p. 219. — Royle, p, 35 — 66. Susruta, son of Visvamitra, is consi-
dered by "Wilson to have been a cotemporary of Rama. We have a Sanscrit
edition of his works (The Sus'mta, or System of Medicine taught by Dhan
wantari, and composed by his disciple Sus'ruta, ed. by Sri Madhusudana
Gupta, Vol. i, ii. Calcutta, 1835, 1836), and a Latin translation (Sus'rutas
Ayurvedas, id est Medicince Systema a venerabili D'havantare demonstratmn,
a Susruta discipulo compositum. Kunc pr. ex S nskrita in Latinum sermonem
vertit Franc. Hessler. 2 vols. Eriangee, 1844, 1847.

(**^ p. 219, — Avicenna says, " Deiudar (Deodar), of the genus 'abhd
(juniperus) ; also an Indian pine which yields a peculiar milk, syr deiudar
(fluid turpentine)."

(^ p. 219. — Spanish Jews from Cordova carried the lessons of Avicennt
VOL. II. 2 F

Ixvi Honss.

to Montpellier, tnd eoatributed in a prindpal degree to tbe establttkme&t of
its celebrated medical achool, belonging to tbe 12th centnij, wbiob ma
■odeUed according to Arabian patterns (Cnner, Hist, des Scienoes natmclla,
T. i. p. 887).

(^) p. 819.— ]<e«pocting the gardens of the palaoe of Bisaofali, which ms
built by Abdnrrahman Ibn-Moaw^'efa, see History of tiie Mohammedin
Dynasties in Spain, extraoted from Ahmed Ibn Mohammed Al-Makkari, hf
^ascnal de Gayangos, Vol. i. I84k0, p. 209—211. En an Hnerta ]dant6 d
Rey Abdarrahman una palma qne era entonces (756) nnica, y de eUa proee-
di^ron todas las qne hay en Espafla. La vista del arbol acreoentaba mas qoe
templaba sn melancolia" (Antonio Ooude, Hist, de la Dominacion de ki
Arabes en Espana, T. i. p. 169).

(^) p. 220. — ^The preparation of nitric acid and aqna r^a by I)jaber
(whose proper name was Abn-Mnssah-Dschafar) is more than 500 yean
anterior to Albertas Magnns and Raymond Lolly, and almost 700 years an-
terior to the Erfiirt Monk, Basilins Yalentinos. Nevertheless, the disoovoy
of these decomposing (dissolving) acids, which constitntes an epoch is
chemical knowledge, was long ascribed to the three last named Europeans.

(^ p. 220. — Respecting the rules given by Razes for the vinona fernKD*
tation of amylum and sngar, and for the distillation of alcohol, see Hofer,
Hist, de la Chimie, T. i. p. 825. Although Alexander of Aphrodiaa
(Joannis Philoponi^Grammatid in Libr. de Generatione et Interitn Comm.
Tenet. 1527, p. 97), properly speaking, only describes circumstantially distil-
lation from sea-water, yet he also indicates that wine may also be distilled.
This is the more remarkable, because Aristotle had put forward (Meteorol. ii-
3, p. 858, Bekker) the erroneoiis opinion, that in natural evaporation fresh
water only rose from wiue, as from the salt water of the sea.

(^ p. 220. — ^The chemistry of the Indians, comprising alchemistic arts,
is called ras&yana (rasa, juice or fluid, also quicksilver; and &yana, march of
proceeding), and forms, according to Wilson, the seventh division of the Ayur-
veda, the " sdence of life, or of the prolongation of Kfe" (Royle, Hindoo
Medicine, p. 39^-48). The Indians have been acquainted from the earliest tima
(Royle, p. 131) with the application of mordants in calico or eotton printing
an Egyptian art which we find most clearly described in Pliny, lib. xxxv.cap. 11)
No. 150. The name ** chemistry" indicates literally " Egyptian art," the art
of the black land ; for Plutarch (de Iside et Osir, cap. 33) knew that the Egyp-
tians called their country Xi}/ita, from the black earth. The inscription oa
4he Roaetta stone has Chmi. I find the word ohemie, aa applied to the de-

3roTES. Ixyii

eompofflng arty first in tlie deerees of Diodetian agamst ** the old writings of
the Egyptians which treat of the 'chemie' of gold and sUrer (irtpc xtt*^^
ofiyv^v KM XS^^^^)'* Compare my Examen erit. de THist. de la O^ogra*
phie et de rAstronomie nantiqne, T. ii. p. 314,

(^ p. 221. — Reinand et Eave da Eea gregeois, des Eenx de Guerre, ek
des Origines de la Poadre ^ Canon, in their Histoire de rArtillerie, T. i.
1845, p. 89—97, 201, and 211 ; Piohert, Traits d'Artillerie, 1886, p. 25;
Beckmann, Technologie, S. 342.

(^) p. 221.— Laplaoe, Precis de I'Hist. de i'Astronomie, 1821, p. 60;
and Sedillot, Memoire sar les Instmmens aatr. des Arahes, 1841, p. 44. Also
Thomas Yonng (Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts,
1807, VoL i. p. 191) does not donbt that Ebn-Junis, at the end of the tenCh
century, applied the pendnlnm to the measurement of time, but he ascribes
the first combination of the pendulum with wheel-work to Sanctorins, in
1612 (44 years before Huyghens). Respecting the very skilfully made time-
piece which was among the presents which Haroun Al-Baschid, or rather the
Caliph Abdallah, sent, two centuries before, firom Persia to Charlemagne at
Aix-la-Chapelle, E^nhaid says distinctly, that it was moved by water (horo-
loginm ex aurichalco arte mechanica mirifice compositum, in quo duodeeim
horarmn cursns ad Clepsidram vertebatur); Einhardt Annales, in Pertz's
Monnmenta Germaniai Historica Scriptomm, T. i. 1826, p. 195. Compare
H. Mutius, de G^rmanorum Origine, Gestis, &c. Chronic, lib. Tiii. p. 57, in
Pistorii Germanicorum Scriptomm, T. ii. Francof. 1584; Bouquet, Recueil
des Historiens des Gaules, T. y. p. 333 and 354. The hours w6re marked
by the sound of the fall of small balls, as well as by the coming forth of small
horsemen firom as many opening doors. The manner in which the water
acted in such timepieces may indeed have been very different among the
Chaldeans, who " weighed time" (determined it by the weight of fli^s), and
among the Greeks and the Indians in Clepsydras ; for the bydraulic clock-
work of Ctesibius, under Ptolemy Euergetes II. which gave the civil hours
throughout the year at Alexandria, according to Ideler was never known
under the common denomination of ic\cT^u8pa (Idder's Handbuch der Chro-
nologic, J 825, Bd. i. S. 231). According to Vitruvius's description (lib. ix.
cap. 4), it was a real astronomical clock, a " horologium ex aqua," a very
complicated "machina hydraulica," working by means of toothed wheels
(versatilis tympani denticuli sequales aliiis alium impellentes). It is thus not
improbable, thai the Arabians, acquainted with the accounts of improved me-
chanical constructions under the Boman Empire, succeeded in making an

Ixviii KOW.

hydnnfie oloek with wheel-work (tympana qnie noTmnUi rotas aiipdliiit)
Grseci aatem w^fivrpoxa, Yitravios, x. 4). Leibnitz (Annales Imperii Oed-
dentin Bmnftvioensis, ed. Perts, T. i. 1843, p. 247) expresses his admiratioB
of the construction of the clock of Haroun Al-Baschid (Abd-Allatif, trad, pir
Silvestre de Sacy, p. 578). A mach more remarkable piece of skilful work
was that which the Saltan sent from Egypt, in 1232, to the Emperor
Frederic IT. It was a large tent, in which the sun and moon were made to
move by mechanism, so as to nse and set, and to shew the hours of the dsy
and of the night at correet intervals of time. In the Annales Godefridi
Monachi S. Pantaleonis apud Coloniam Agrippinam, it is described as *' ten-
torinm, in ^o imagines solis et Innie artificialiter motse cursum snom certis
ct debitis spaciis peragrant, et horas diei et nootis infallibiliter indicant
(Freheri Remm Crermanicarum Scriptores, T. i. Argentor. 1717, p. 39S).
The monk Godefridus, or whoever else may have treated of those years in the
•chronicle which was, perhaps, written by many different authors for the con-
vent of St. Pantaloon at Cologne (see Bohmer, Pontes Rerum Germanicamm,
Bd. u. 1845, S. xxxiv.-^xxxvii.), lived in the time of the great Emperor
Frederic II. himself. The emperor had this curious work, the value of whidi
was estimated at 20000 marks, preserved at Venusium, with other treasures
(Fried, von Raumer, Gesch. der Hohenstaufen, Bd. iii. S. 430). That the
whole tent was given a movement like that of the vault of heaven, as has
often been asserted, appears to me very improbable. The Chronica Monas-
terii Hirsaugiensis, edited by Trithemius, contains scarcely any thing more
tJian a mere repetition of the passage in the Annales Godefridi, without giving
any information about the mechanical construction (Job. Trithemii Open
Historica, P. ii. Francof. 1601, p. 180). Beinaud says that the movement
•was effected "par des ressorts caches" (Extraits des Historiens Arabesrdatift
aux Guerres des Croisades, 1829, p. 435).

(^ p. 223. — On the Indian tables which Alphazari and Alkoresmi translated
into Arabic, see Chasles, Recherehes snr TAstronomie indieune, in the Comptes
rendus des Seances de TAcad. des Sciences, T. xxiii. 1846, p. 846 — 850.
The substitution of the sine for the arc, which is usually ascribed to ^Ibi^-
nius, in the beginning of the tenth century, also belongs originally to the
Indians : tables of sines are to be found in the Snrya-Siddhanta.

(*»*) p. 223. — Reinaud, IVagments Arabes rehttifs k Tlnde, p. xii.^xvii.
96 — 126, and especially 135 — 160. Albiruni's proper name was Abul-Ryhan.
He was a native of Byrun in the valley of the Indus, was a friend of
AviceBaa, and lived with him at the Arabian academy which had been formed

NOTES. bdx

m Chsracm. His sojourn in India, and the writing of his history of Indii
frarikhi'Hind), the most remarkable fragments of which have been made
known by Reinaud, belong to the years 1030 — 1032.

(^ p. 224.— SedUlot, Materianx pour servir a THistoire eomparee det
Sciences mathematiques chez les Grecs at les Orientanx, T. L p. 50 — 89 ; the
same, in the Comptes rendns de TAcad. des Sciences, T. ii. 1836, p. 202, T.
xvii. 1843, p. 163—173, T. xx. 1845, p. 1308. M. Biot maintains, in
opposition to this opinion, that the fine discovery of T^cho Brahe by no
means belongs to Abul- Wefa ; that the latter was ucqnainted, not with the
'* variation," bnt only witii the second part of the " evection" (Journal des
Savans, 1843, p. 513—682, 609—626,719—737; 1845, p. 146—166;
and Comptes rendns, T. xx. 1845, p. 1319—1328).

(^ p. 224. — Laplace, Expos, du Syst^me dn Monde, Note 5, p. 407.

(^*) p. 225. — On the observatory of Meragha, see Delambre, Histoire de
r Astronomic dn Moyen Age, p. 198 — 203 ; and Am. Sedillot, Mem. snr les In-
strumens arabes, 1841, p. 201 — 205, where the gnomon is described with a
circular opening. On the peculiarities of the star catalogue of Ulugh Beig,
see J. J. Sedillot, Tralto des Instruments astronomiques des Aiabes, 1834,
p. 4.

^) p. 225.— Colebrooke, Algebra, with Arithmetic and Mensuration from
the Sanscrit of Brahmegupta and Bhascara, Lond. 1817. Chasles, Aper9a
historique sur I'Origine et le Devdoppement des M^odes en Geometrie,-
1837, p. 416—502; Nessehnann, Versuch einer kritischen Geschichte der
Algebra, Th. i. S. 30—61, 273— 276, '302— 306.

Q^) p. 225. — Algebra of Mohammed Ben-Musa, edited and translated by
F. Rosen, 1831, p. 8, 72, and 196—199. The mathematical knowledge of
India was extended to China about the year 720 ; but this was at a period
when many Arabians were abready settled in Canton and other Chinese cities.
Reinaud, Relation des Voyages faits per les Arabes dans Tlnde et ii la Chine,
T. i. p. 109 ; T. ii. p. 36.

(*^ p. 226. — Chasles, Histoire de TAlgfebre, in the Comptes rendus,
T. xiii. 1841, p.' 497—524, 601—626 ; compare also Xibri, in the same,
p. 559—563.

(^ p. 226. — Chasles, Aper9U historique det M^hodes en Geometric^
1837, p. 464 — 472. The same, in the Comptes rendus de FAcad. des
Sciences, T. viii. 1839, p. 78; T. ix. 1839, p. 449; T. xvi. 1843, p. 156--
173, and 218—246 ; T. xvii. 1848, p. 148—154.
' ^) p. 227.— Humboldt, iiber die . bei verschiedenen Volkem ublieheii

K0T£8.

Syateme tod Zalilieicliai vnd iiber den Unpnmg des Stellenweiihes in da
indiMhen Zahloiy in Crelle's Jonrnal for die reine ond angewandte Mathematak,
Bd. iv. (1829), S. 205->281 ; oomptre also mj Examen crit. de THist. de b
G«ognphie, T. iv. p. 275. The limple rdation of tlie different methods
which nations, to whom the Indian arithmetic by position was nnkoown, em-
pkyed for expressing the multiplier of the ftmdamental giovp, oontaiiu^ I
believi^ the explanation of the gradual rise or origin of the Indian system.
If we expcQss the number 3&68, either perpendicularly or horizontally, by mesni
of ''indicators," which correspond to the different diTiaions of the Abaeo!^
(thus, M c X I^' ^^ '^^ easily perceive that the groiqi-signs (M C X 1)
eonld be kft out. But our Indian numbers are no other than these indicaton ;
they are the multipliers of the different groups. We are also reminded of tiiis
designation (aoleily by means of indicators) by the ancient Indian Suanpan (the
reckoning Tnachine which the Moguls introduced into Bussia), which \m
smccessiTe rows or wires representing the thousands, bundreds, tens, and imitL
These rows would present^ in the numerical example just cited, 8, 5, 6, and 8
balls. In the Suanpan, no gnmp-sign ia risible: the group-eigns are the
positions themselves; and these positions (rows or wires) are oocnpied bf
units (3, 5, 6, and 8) as multipliers or indicators. In both ways, whether
by the written or by the palpable arithmetic, we arrive at position-value, and
at the simple use of nine numbers. If a row is empty, the place will be un-
filled in writing. If a group (a member of the progression) is wanting, the
vacuity is graphically filled by the symbol of vacuity (siinya^ sifron, tzophn).
In the " Method of Eutodus," I find, in the group of the myriads, Che fizsk
trace of the exponential system of the Greeks so important for the East:
It, M^ M\ designate 10000, 20000» 80000. That which is here applied
only to the myriads extends among the Chinese and Japanese, wbo derived
their instruction from the Chinese 200 yean before the Christian Era, to ell
the mnltiplien of the groups. In the Gobar, the Arabian " dust writing,*' (die*
covered by my deceased friend and teacher, Silvestre de Sacy, in a manuscript
in the Hbraiy of the oild Abbey of St. Germain des Ptes,) the grou3>-signs an
points — therefore, noughts or ciphers; for in India, Thibet, and Pcfsii^
noughts and points are identical. In the Gobar, 3* is 30 ; 4*' ia 400; and
6'.' is 6000. The Indian numbera^ and the knowledge of the value of pootioi^
must be more modem than the separation of the Indians and the Arians ; for
tJie Zend nation only used the far less eonvenient Pehlvi numbers. The
opinion that the Indian notation has undergone successive improvemcBti
appears to me to derive particular support from the Tamul system, whick ex-

KOTISS. Im

Timts by nine clianicten, and all otKer values hy gronp-signs for 10,
100, and 1000, having mnltipliers added to the left. I draw the same infer*
enoe from the sihgolar aptOfun ci^moi in a achoHnm of the monk Neophytos»
discovered by Prof. Brandis in the library of Paris, and kindly conmiunicated
lo me for publication; The nine characters of Neophytos ate, with the ex»
eeption of the 4, quite similar (6 the present Persian ; but these nine Units are
raised to 10, 100, 1000 times their value by writing one, two, or three

O Q , 00

telphers (o) above them; as 2 for twenty, 2 4 for twenty-four, & for five hun*

• o

dred, and 8 6 for three hundred and six. If we suppose points to be used
instead of ciphers, we have the Arabic dust writing, Gobar: As my brothet
Wilhdm von Humboldt has often remarked of the Sanscrit, that it is very in
a^projffiately designated by the terms "Indian" and ** ancient Indian"
language, since there are in the Indian peninscda several very ancient lan-
guages not at all derived firom the Sanscrit, — so the expression Indian, ot
ancient Indian, system of notation is abo vague, both in respect to the form
of the characters and also to the spirit of the method, which latter sometimes
consists in simple juxta-position, sometimes in the use of Coefficients and
Indicators, and sometimes in proper " position-value." Even the existence
of the cipher, at character for 0, is not a necessary condition of the simple
position-value in Indian notation, as the scholium of Neophytos shews. The
Indians who speak the Tamul language have numerical characters which
appear to differ from thar alphabetic characters. The 2 and the 8 have a
feint resemblance to the 2 and the 5 of the Bevanagari figures, (Rob. Anderson,
Rudiments of Tamul Gnunmar, 1821, p. 135) ; and yet an accurate com!-
parison shews that the Tamul numerical characters are derived from the
Tamul alphabetical writing. Still more different from the Devanagari figures
are, according to Carey, the Cingalese. In the latter, and in the Tamul, we
find neither position-value nor zero sign, but symbols for tens, hundreds, and
thousands. The Cingalese work, like the Romans, by juxta-position ; the
Tamuls by coefficients. Ptolemy, in his Almagest and in his Geography,
uses the present zero sign to represent the descending or negative scale in
degrees and minutes. The zero sign is, consequently, of more ancient use in
the West than the epoch of the invasion of the Arabs. (See my work above
dted, and the memoir printed in CreUe's Mathematical Journal, S. 215, 219^

223, and 227.)

(W^ p. 228.— Wilhehn von Humboldt, liber die Kawi-Sprache, Bd. i.
8. ocLdi. Compare also the excellent description of the Arabians, in Herder's
Ideen znr Gesch. der Menscheit, Book lix. 4 and 6.

Indi VOTES.

(">) p. 881. — Compare HumlMldtt Bxamen erit ii FHitU de1« Gvognp
phie, T. i p. Tiii. and xii.

(*") p. SSS.-^ParU of Amerieft were aeen, but not landed on, 14 yeiia
before Leif Eureksaon, in the voyage which Bjanie Heijnl6on undertook from
Greenland to the aonthward in 986. He iint nw the iaod at the ialaod of
Kantockek, a degree aonth of Boaton ; then in Nova Scotia; and, katly, ia
Newfoandlaiid, whidi waa aobaeqiienlly ealled " litla HeQnlaiid," bat neier
•< Vinlaad." The golf which dividea Newfonndland ftom the month of t]i|
great river St. Lawrence waa called by the northmen aettled in Icdand u2
Greenland, HarUand Golf. See CaroU Chriataani Bafia, Antiqnitatea Aju^
ricanie, 1845, p. 4, 421, 423, and 463.

(^ p. 238. — Gmmbjom waa wrecked, in 876 or 877> on the roeks flob-
aeqaently called by his name^ which were lately rediscovered by Captais
Graah. It was Gonnbjdm who first saw the east coast of Greenland, bit
without landing upon it. (Bafn, Ajitiqnit. Amer. p. 11, 03, and 304.)

(^) p. 284.— Kosmoe, Bd. ii S. 163 (Engl, trans. Vol. ii. p. 129).

(^) p. 234. — ^These mean annual temperatures of the east coast of America,
between the parallels of 42° 25' and 41° 15', correspond in Europe to the
latitudes of Berlin and Paris, places situated 8° or 10° more to the nortl:.
Moreover, on this coast the decrease of mean annual temperature from loirer
to higher latitudes is so rapid that, in the interval of latitude between BostoB
and Philadelphia, which is 2° 4V, an increase of a degree of latitude cat'
responds to a decrease in the mean annual temperature of almost 2° of tk
Centigrade thermometer; whereas, in the European system of isotherntil
.lines, the same difference of latitude, according to my researches, barely eor*
responds to a decrease of half a degree of temperature^ (Asie centrale, T. ii^

p. 227).

(^ p. 234.— See Carmen Fsroicum in quo Vinlandise mentio fit, (Stab^
Antiquit. Amer. p. 320 and 33j^).

(^ p. 235. — The Runic stone was placed on the highest point of tlie
Island of Kingiktorsoak " on the Saturday before thie day of victory," i. i.
before the 21 st of April, a great Heathen festival of the ancient ScandinaviaBSi
which, at their reception of Christianity, was converted into a Christian
festival. Bafii, Antiquit. Amer. p. 347 — 355. On the doubts which Biyo*
julfsen, Mohnike, and Klaproth have expressed respecting the Runic number^
see my Examen crit. T. ii. p. 97 — 101 ; yet, from other indications, Biya-
julfseu and Graah regard the important monnment on the Women's lalinds
(as well as the Rnnic macriptuma found al Igalikko and Eg^t» lat. 6(f Sr

' ^

KOTES.

Ixxiii

and 60"" O', and the mins of buildings at Upemaviok, lat. TB"" 50^ as belonging
decidedly to the lltb and 12th oentniies.

(») p. 235.— Bafh, Antiqnit. Amer. p. 20, 274, and 415— 418 (Wilhehni
ftber Island, Hvitramannaland, Greenland, and Vinhmd, S. 117 — 121). Ao-
oording to a very ancient Saga, the most northern part of the east coast of
Greenland was also visited in 1194, under the name of Svalbard, at a part
which corresponds to Sooresby's land, near the point where my friend,
then Captain Sabine, made his pendolnm observations, and where I possess a
very dreary cape, in 73° 16' (Rain, Antiqnit. Amer. p. 808, and Aperju de
Tancienne Q<^graphie des Regions arctiques de TAmenqne, 1847> p. 6.)

(^ p. 236.— Wilhehni, work above quoted, S. 226 ; Rafu, Antiqnit. Amer.
p. 264 and 463. The settltements on the west coast of Oreenland, which,
nntil the middle of the 14th centory, were in a very floniishing condition^
underwent a gradual decay, from the ruinous operation of commercial mono-
poly, from the attacks of Esquinmuz (Skralinger), the black death which,
according to Hecker, desolated the North during the years 1847 to 1351, and
the invasion of a hostile fleet from some unknown quarter. At the present
time, credit is no longer given to the meteorological myth of a sudden altera-
tion of climate, and of the formation of an icy barrier, which had for its imme<
diate consequence the entire separation of the colonies established in Green-
land from their mother country. Ab these colonies were only on the more
temperate district of the west coast of Greenland, it cannot be true that a
bishop of Skalholt, in 1540, saw, on the east coast of Greenland, beyond the
icy barrier, ** shepherds feeding their flocks." The aocumuktion of masses
of ice on the east coast opposite to Iceland depends on the configuration oi
the land, the neighbourhood of a chain of mountains having glaciers and
running parallel to the line of coast, and on the direction of marine currents.
This state of things did not take its origin from the dose of . the 14th or the
beginning of the 16th centuries. As Sir John Barrow has very justly shewn»
it has been subject to many accidental alterations, particularly in the years
1815^-'1817. (See Barrow, Voyages of Discoyery within the Arctic Regions^
1846, p. 2-— 6). Pope Nicholas Y. named a bishop for Greenland as late as
1448.

' (^) P* 286. — The principal sources of information are the «istorie narra-
tions of Eric the Red, Thorfinn Karbefhe, and Snonre Thorbrandsson, pror
bably committed to writing as early as the 12th century in Greenland itself
and partly by descendants of settlers bom in Vinland (Rafii, Antiqnit. Amer.
p. vii. xiv. and xvi.) The care with which genealogical tables were kept wad

X

Ixxiv NOTES.

80 great, that that of Thorfinn Karlsefae, whose aon Snorre ThorbnmdsaQB
was born in America, has been brought down from 1007 to 1811.

(^0 p. 237. — Hvitramannaland, the land of tlie white men. Compire
the original sources of information, in Rafn, Antiquit. Amer. p. 208 — 206, 211,
446 — 461 ; and Wilhelmi iiber Island, HvitramannaUM, &c. S. 75 — 81.

(^ p. 238. — Letronne, Recherches g>^ogr. et orit. sor le livre de "Mea-
sura Orbis Terra:," composed en Irlande, par Dicoil, 1814, p. 129 — 146
Compare my Examen crit. de THist. de la Geogr. T. ii. p. 87 — 91.

(^ p. 238. — 1 have impended to the ninth book of mj travels (BelatioB
historique, T. iii. 1825, p. 159) a collection of the stories which have beeo
told fi'om the time of Raleigh, of natives of Virginia speaking pure Celtic; of
the Gaelic salutation, hao, hni, iach, having been heard there ; of Owen Cha*
pdain, in 1669, saving himself flx)m the hands of the Tuscaroras, who wen
about to scalp him, " by addressing them in his native Gaelic." These Tos-
caroras of North Carolina are now, however, distinctly recognised by lingoistie
investigations, as an Iroquois tribe. See Albert Gallatin on Indian Tribes,
in the Aichssdlogica Americana, Vol. ii. 1886, p. 28 and 57. A consideraUe
collection of Tuscarora words is given by Catlin, one of the moat exceQeot
observers of manners who at any time sojourned amongst the aborigines of
America. He, however, is often indined to regard the rather fair and ofiea
blue-eyed nation of the Tuscaroraa as a mixed race, descended &om andent
Welsh and irom the original inhahitaDta of the American continent. See hii
Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North
American Indians, 1841, Vol. i. p. 207 ; Vol. ii. p. 259 and 262—265.
Another collection of Tuscarora words is to be found in my brother's manii*
script notes respecting language, in the Royal library at Berlin. *' Comme k
structure des idioms americains parait siugulierement bizarre aux differem
peuples qui parlent les langues modemes de TEurope oocidentale, et se husscai
fiicilement troqiper par de furtuites analogies de quelques s<»is, les thedogieos
out cm g^neralement y voir de Thebieu, les colons espagnols dn basque, let
colons anglais ou fran9ais dn galloia, de Tirlandais ou dn bas-breton. ......

J'ai rencontre un jour, sur les c6tes du Perou, un ofiicier de k marine espag-
nol et un baleinier anglais, dont Tun pretendait avoir entendu parler basqas
k Tahiti, et Tautre gide-irlandais aux iles Sandwich" (Humboldt, Voyage anx
R^ons equinoxiales, Relat. hist. T. iii. 1825, p. 160). Although, however,
no eonnection of language has yet been proved, I by no means wish to deny
that the Basques and the nations of Celtic origin inhabiting Ireland an^
Walesit who were eark enoaged in fisheries on the most remote coasts, were

NOTES, IXXV

the constunt rivals of the Scandinavians in the northern parts of the Athintic,
and even t^t the Iri^ preceded the Scandinavians in the Faroe Islands and
in Iceland. It is much to he desired that in onr days, when a healthy spirit
of criticism, severe hut not ooiitemptaoos, prevails, the old investigations of
Powel and Richard HaMnyt (Voyages and Navigations, Vol. iii. p. 4) might
be resumed in England, and also in Ireland itsdf. Are there grounds for the
statement that fifteen years before Columbus's discoveiy, the wanderings of
liadoc were celebrated in the poems of the Welsh bard Meredith ? I do not
participate in the rejecting spirit which has but too often thrown popular
traditions into obscurity ; I incline fdr more to the firm persuasion that, by
greater diligence and perseverance, many of the historical problems which
relate to the diarts of the early part of the middle age8,-~to the striking agree-
ment in religious traditions, manner of dividing time, and works of art in
America and Eastern Asia ;— to the migrations of the Mexican nations, — to
the ancient centres of dawning civilization in Aztlan, Quivira, and Upper
Louisiana, as well as in the devated table lands of Cundinamarca and Peru,—
will one day be cleared up by discoveries of &cts which have been hitherto
entirely unknown to us. See my Examen crit. de I'Hist. de la Geogr. da
Kouveau Continent, T. iL p. 142 — 149.

P*) p. 240. — ^Whereas this drcumstanci of the absenee of ice in Pebruary
1477 lias 1>een adduced as a proof that Cdumhus's Island of Thule could not
be Iceland, Finn Magnusen found, in ancient historical sources, that up to
March 1477 the northern part of Iceland had no snow, and that in Pehruary
of the same year the southern coast was free from ice (Examen crit. T. i. p^
105 ; T. V. p. 213). It is very remarkable, that Colombus, in the same
"Tratado de las einoo zonas habitables," mentions a more southern island,
Prislanda; a name which plays a great part in the travels of the brothers
Zeni (1388 — 1404) which are mostly regarded as &bulous, but which is
wanting in the maps of Andrea Bianco (1436), and in that of Fra Mauro
(1457—1470). (Compare Examen crit. T. ii. p. 114--126.) Columbut
cannot have been acquainted with the travels of the Fratelli Zeni, as they
aren remained unknown to the Venetian family until the year 1658, in which
Marcolini first published them, 52 years after the death of the great admiraL
VHience was the admiral's acquaintance with the name Frislanda P

(^") p. 241.^^ee the proots, which I have collected from trustworthy
documents, for Columbus in the Examen crit. T. iv. p. 233, 250, and 261,
and for Vespucci, T. v. p. 182 — 185. Ck>lumbns was so full of the idea of
Cuba being part of the ooittiuent of Ana, and ev«n the aooth part of Cathay

Ixm NOTES.

(the provinee of Mango), that on the 12th of JoiiCi, 1494, heeanaedtk
whole crews of his squadrons (about 80 sailors) to sweat that thej were cos*
Tinoed he might go firom Cuba to Spain by land (" que esta tierra de Cah
fuese la tierra firme al oomieozo de las Indies y fin 4 qnien en estas psita
quisiere venir de Espafta por tierra") ; and that "if uny who now swore it
should at any fiitnre day assert the contrary, they would incor the ponisii-
ment of peijury, in receiving one hundred stripes, and having the tongue ton
out." (See Ittformaeion del Escribano publico Fernando Perez de Lniu, ii
Navarrete, Viages y Desoubrimientos de los Espafiolea, T. il. p. 143—149.)
When Columbus was i^roaching the ishmd of Cuba on his first expedition,
he thought himself opposite the Chinese commercial cities of Zaitnn ud
duinsay (" y es cierto, dice d Almiraute, qnesta es la tierra finne y qne estoy,
dice el, ante Zayto y Guinsay"). He designs to deliver the letters of tk
Catholic monarchs to the Great Mogul Khan (Gran Can) in Cathay; vsi.
having thus discharged the mission entrusted to him, to return immediitei/
to Spain (bnt by sea). Subsequently he sends on shore a baptised Jew, Loii
de Torres, because he understands Hebrew, Chaldee, and some Arabic, whiek
are languages in use in Asiatic trading cities. (See Columbus's JoonisI of
his Voyage, 1492, in Navarrete, Viages y Descnbrim, T. i. p. 37, 44, and 46.)
As late as 1583, the Astronomer Schoner maintained the whole of the so-
called New World to be a part of Asia (superioris ludiee), and the city d
Mexico (Temistitan) conquered by Cortes to be no other than the Chinese
commercial city of Quinsay, so immoderately extolled by Marco Polo. (Ssi
^oannis Schonerl Carlostadii Opuaculum geographicum, Norimb. 1533, hn
ii. cap. 1 — 20.)

(^) p. 241.— Da Asia de Joio de Barros e de Diogo de Couto, Dee.i lir.
iu. cap. 11 (Parte i. lisboa, 1778, p. 250).

C^) p, 244. — Jonrdain, Rech. crit. sur les Traductions d'Aristote, p. 23(^
234, and 421 — 428 ; Letronne, des Opinions cosmographiques des Pens
de I'EgUse, rapprochees des Doctrines philosophiques de la Gr^ce, in the Beros
des deux Mondes, 1834, T. i. p. 632.

(:^ p. 244. — ^Friedrich von Raumer iiber die Philoaophie des dreixehntcB
Jahrhnnderts, in his Hist. Taschenbuoh, 1840, S. 468. On the indinatioi
towards Platonism in the middle ages, and on the contests of the schoolB, M
Heinrich Ritter, Gesch. der christl. Philoaophie, Th. ii. S. 159^; Th. iil.
S. 131—160, and 881—417.

(^ p. 245.— Cousin, Cours de THist. de k Philosophic, T. i. 1829, p.
360 and 889--436; FruKmens de Philosophle cartesienne, p. 8—12 and

NOTES. ixxvn

4t)3. Compare alsb the recent ingenious work of Christian Bartholmess,
entitled Jordano Bruno, 1847, T. i. p. 308 ; T. ii. p. 409—416.

C*) p. 246.— Jourdain sur Ics Trad. d*Aristote, p. 236 ; and Michael
Sachs, die religiose Poesie der Juden in Spanien, 1845, S. 180 — 200.

(*^) p. 247.— The greater share of merit in regard to the history of aui-
mals belongs to the Emperor Frederic II. Important independent observa-
tions on the internal structure of birds are due to him. (See Schneider, in
Reliqua Librorum Frederid II. Imperatoris de Arte venandi cum Avibus, T.
i. 1788, in the Preface.) Cuvier also calls this prince the "first independent
and original zoologist of the scholastic Middle Ages." For Albert Magnus's
correct view of the distribution of heat over the surface of the globe, under
different latitudes and at different seasons, see' his Liber cosmographicus de
Natura Locorum, Argent. 1515, fol. 14 b and 23 a (Examen crit. T. i. p.
54 — 98). In his own observations, however, Albertus Magnus unhappily
often shews the uncritical spirit of his age. He thinks he knows " that rye
changes on a good soil into wheat ; that from a beech wood which has been
cut down, by means of the decayed matter a birch wood will spring up ; and
that from oak branches stuck into the earth vines arise." (Compare also
Ernst Meyer iiber die Botanik des 13ten Jahrhunderts, in the Liunsea, Bd. x.
1836, S. 719.)

(^ p. 248. — So many passages of the Opus majus shew the respect which
Roger Bacon paid to Grecian antiquity, that, as Jourdain has already remarked
(p. 429), we can only interpret the wish expressed by him in a letter to Pope
Clement VI. " to bum the works of Aristotle, in order to stop the propaga*
tion of error among the schools," as referring to the bad Latin translations
from the Arabic.

(^ p. 248. — " Scientia experimentalis a vulgo studentium penitus igno-
rata ; duo tamen sunt modi cognoscendi, scilicet per argumeutum et experi-
entiam (the ideal path, and the path of experiment). Sine experientia nihil
sufficienter sciri potest. Argumeutum 6oncludit, sed non certificat, neque re*
movet dubitationem ; ut quiescat animus in intuitu veritatis, nisi earn inve-
niat via experientise" (Opus Majus, Pars vi. cap. 1). I have collected all the
passages relating to Roger Bacon's physical knowledge, and to his proposals
for invention and discovery, in the Examen crit. de I'Hist. de la Geogr. T. ii.
p. 295 — 299. Compare filso Whewell, Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences^
Vol. ii. p. 823—337.

pM) p. 248.— See Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 328 (Engl edit. Vol. ii. p. 193). I
find Ptolemy's Optics quoted in the Opus Mijua (ed. Jebb, Lond. 1733), p.

IxXViii NOTES.

79, 288, aod 404. It has been jnatly denied (Wilde, Geachidite der Optik,
Th. i. S. 92 — ^96), that knowledge deri?ed fh>m Alhazen, of the magniffiDg
power of aegments of spheres, actually led Bacon to oonstrnct qpectades; tU
invention appears either to have been known as enriy as 1299, or to behig
to the Florentine Salvino degU ^^rmati, who was buried, in 1S17, » lie
Chnrch of Santa Maria Maggbre at Florence. If Roger Bacon, who eon-
pleted his Opns Migus in 1267> speaks of instrnments hy means of wLid
imall letters appear large, " utiles senibna habentibna oculos d^iies," In
words, and the practically erroneous oonsidenitions which ke subjoins, she*
that he cannot himself have executed the plan which floated before his mia^

is possible.

(») p. 250.— See my Bxamen crit. T. i. p. 61, 64— -70, 96—108; T.i
p. 349. " II existe aussi de Pierre d'Ailly, que Bon Fernando Colon noniiie
toujonrs Pedro de Hdioo, cinq m^moires de Concordantia Astronomiie con
Theologia. lis repellent quelques essais tr^ modemes de Geologie bebnis-
sante pubH^ 400 ans apres le cardinal."

fW) p. 250. — Compare Columbus's letter (Navarrete, Yiages y Descobii-
mientos, T. i. p. 244) with the Imago Mundi of Cardinal d'Ailly, cap. 8, ud
Roger Bacon's Opus Majus, p. 183.

f»7) p. 252. — Heeren, Gesch. der classischen Litteratnr, Bd. i. S. 284—

290.

^ p, 252. — Klaproth, Memoires rehtti& ^ TAsie, T. iii. p. 11$«

fW) p. 252. — ^The Florentine edition of Homer of 1488 ; but the fint
printed Greek book was the grammar of Constantino Lascaris, in 1476.

(^ p. 252. — ^Villemab, Melanges historiques ct litteralres, T. iL p. 185.

(391) p. 252. — The result of the investigations of the librarian Ludwig
Wachler, at Breslau (see his Geschichte der Litteratnr, 1833, Th. i. S. 12-
^3). Printing without moveable types does not go back, even in Ohbi,
beyond the beginning of the tenth century of our era. The first four boob
of Confucius were printed, according to Klaproth, in the province of Siat.
•chuen, between 890 and 925 ; and the description of the technical mampnh-
tion of the Chinese printing press might have been read in western countries
as early as 1310, in Raschid-eddin's Persian history of the rulers of (kihj.
According to the most recent results of the important researches of Stanislas
Julien, however, an ironsmith in China itself would seem to have used mo?^
able types, made of burnt clay, between the years 1041 and 1048 A.D. «
almost 400 years before Guttefhberg. This is the invention of the Fi-adiing;
which, however, remained without application*

NOTBS. hcxix

(^ p. 863,— See the prooft, in my Sniiieii crit. T. ii. p. 816—320.
Joeafat Barbaro (1436) and Ohislin ?on Buabeck (1555) still found, between
Tana (Aeof ), Caffa, and the Erdil (the Volga), ATani and Gothic tribes speak-
lag Gennan (Bamosio, deile Nafigationi et Vii^gi, Vol. ii. p. 92 b and 98 a).
Boger Baoon alvrays terms Babmqnis only ^ter WilUehnns, qoem donwms
Bex Erancitt misit ad Tartaros.

(*^ p. 254.^The great and fin» work of Marco Polo (B MHione di Messer
Marco Polo), as we possess it in the correct edition of Count Baldelli, is in-
ooirectly called "TraTek" ; it is lor the most part a descriptiTC, one might
say a statistieal, worik ; in which it is difficult to distinguish what the traveller
saw himsel/, what he learned from others, and what he deriTed from topogra-
phic descriptions, in which the dunese literature is so rich, and which might
be accessible to him through his Persian interpreters. The striking resemblance
between the narratire of the truTels of Hiuan-thsang, the Buddhistic pilgrim of
the seventh century, and that which Marco Polo found in 1277 (respecting the
Pamir-Highland), eariy drew my whole attention. Jaoquet, who an early de-
cease withdrewfrom the inrestigationof Asiatic languages, and who, like Klaproth
and myself^ was lon^ occupied with the great Venetian traveller, wrote to me,
a short time before his death, " Je soia frappe comme vous de la forme de re-
daction litti^raire du Milione. Le fond appartient sans doute k Tobservation
directe et persounelle dn voyageur, mais il a probablement employe des docu-
ihenta qui lui ont ^te communiques soit offidellement^ soit eu particulier.
Bien des choses paraissent avoir ^te em^runt^s k des livres Chinois et Mon-
gols, bien que ces influences sur la composition du Milione soient difficiles k
reoonnaitre dans les traductions snocessives sur ksquelles Polo aura fonde ses
extraits." Whilst our modem travellers are only too well pleased to occupy
their readers with their own persons, Marco Polo takes no less pains to blend
his own observations with the ofEU^ial data communicated to him ; of which,
as governor of the city of Yangui, he might have many. (See my Asie cen-
trale, T. ii. p. 395.) The compiling method of the illustrious traveller also
helps to explain the possibility of his dictating his book while confined in the
prison air Genoa, in 1295, to his fellow-prisoner and fnend Messer Rustigielo
of Pisa, as if the documents had been lying before him. (Compare Marsden,
Travels of Marco Polo,^p. zzxiii.)

i^) p. 254.— Purchas, Pilgrims, Part iii. ch. 28 and 56 (p. 23 and 24).

(^) p. 254. — ^Navarrete, Colecdon de los Viages y Descubrimientos que
hicieron por mar los Espafloles, T. i. p. 261 ; Washington Irving, History
of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Cdumbus, 1828, Vol. iv. p. 297.

IXXX VOTES.

("*>) p. 255.— Examen crit. de I'Hist. de Is G^. T. i. p. 63 and 815;
T. ii. p. 850. Marsden, Tra^ela of Maroo Polo, p. Ivii. Ixx. and Ixx?. Th
first German Nuremberg verrion of 1477) (daa pnch des edeln Bitten ni
laiidtrarerB Marcho Polo) ^>peared in print in Colnmboa's lifetime ; the fint
Latin traoslation in 1490, and the fint Italian and Portogneae tnnalatioiii ii
1496 and 1502.

(^ p. 256. — Barros, Bee. i. Ht. iii. esp. 4, p. 190, sajs expressly fkt
" Bortholomen Diaz, e os de ana companhis per causa dos perigos, e tonm-
tas, qae em o dobrar deUe passaram, Ihe pnierion.nome Tormentoso." Tfae
merit of first donbling the Cape does not therefore belong, as nanally stated,
to Yasco de Gama. Diaz was at the Gi^ in May 1487, almost thenfore at
the same time that P«dro de CoWlham and Aknso de Payva of BsroeloBa
arrived from their expedition. In December of the same year (1487)i I^
bronght himself to Portugal the news of his important discoyery.

*

(^ p. 256. — The planisphere of Sannto, who caUs himself '* Marina
Sannto dictns Torxellns de Yenedis," belongs to the work, Secreta fiddim
Crads. " Marinas pr^dia adroitement nne croisade dans I'inter^ da earn*
meroe, voalant detraire la prosperity de TEgypte, et dinger toates les mar-
chandises de I'lnde par Bagdad, Bassora et Taaris (Tebriz), k Kaflh, tuA
(Azow), et aux cdtes asiatiques de la Mediterranee. Contemporain et ooo-
patriote de Polo, dont il n'a pas connn le Milione, Sannto s'eldve il de
grandes vnes de politique commerdale. C'est le Raynal da moyen-ag^
moins Tincredulite d'an abb^ philosophe du ISme siede." — (Examencrit
T. i. p. 331, 333—848.) The Cape of Good Hope is called Capo di Bisb
on the map of Fra Maaro, which was compiled between 1457 and 1459 : aft
tbe learned memoir of Cardinal Znrla, entitled, II Mappamond<^ di Ai
Manro Camaldolese, 1806, ^ 54.

(^) p. 257. — ^Avron or avr (aor) is a less-nsed term for North, onployei
instead of the more ordinary " schem&l" ; the Arabic Zohron or Zohr, from whicb
Klaproth erroaeoosly endeavoors to derive the Spanish snr and Portogaesesnl
(which is, without doubt, like our Siid, a true Germanic word), does not pro-
perly bdong to the particular denomination of the quarter indicated ; it so-
nifies only the time of.high noon ; South is dschentb. Bespecting the earif
knowledge of the Chinese of the south pointing of the magnetic needle, see
Klaproth's important investigations in his Lettre k M. A. de Humboldt, soi
riuvention de la Boussole, 1834, p. 41, 45, 50, 66, 79 and 90 ; and tke
Memoir of Azuni of Nice, which appeared in 1805, entitled, Dissertstka
sor rOrigine de la Boussole, p. 35 and 65 — 68. Navairete, in his DisdUM

KOTES. Ixxxi

.liirtoRco flobre los pTogresos del Arte de Navegar en Sspafia; 1802, p. 28»
-recals a remarkable passage in the Spanish Leyes de las Partldas (II. tit. iz.
ley 18) of the middle of the 13th century*. — "The needle which guides thq
.'WiMnner in the dark night, and shows him how to direct his course both in
good and in bad weather, is the intermediary (medianera) between the load-
stone (la piedra) and the North star" See the passage in Las aiete

Partldas. del sabio Bey Don Alonso el IX. (according to the usual manner of
•canting the Zth.) Madrid, 1829, T. i. p. 473.

. (^) p. 258.~4oidano Bruno, par Christian Barthohn^ 1847, T. ii.
f, 181—187.

(^^) p« 258. — Tenian los mareantes instmmento, carta» compas y aguja."
< — Salazar, Diacurso sobre los progresoa de la Hydrografia en Espafia, 1809,

p. 7.

(*») p. 258.— Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 203 (Engl. ed. Vol. U. p. 169.)
. C^) p. 258. — Respecting Cusa (Nicolaus of Cuss, properly of Cues on the
Hoselle), see abo?e, Kosmos, Bd. ii S. 140 (Engl. ed. YoL ii. p. 106) ; and
Clemens' treatise, iU>er Giordano Bnmo and Nicolaus de Cusa, S. 97, where
there is given an important fragment, written by Cusa's own hand, and dis-
covered only three years ago, respecting a threefold movement of the earth.
(Compare also Chaales, Aper9us aur Torigine des methodes en Geometrie,
1807, p. 629.)

(^) p. 259. — ^Navarrete, Dissertaciqn histoiica sobre la parte que tnvi^ron
loa Espanoles en las guerras de Ultramar 6 de las Cruzadas, 1816, p. 100 ;
and Examen crit. T. 1. p. 574 — 277. An important improvement in obser-
vation by means of the ^lumb-line has been attributed to Georg von Peuer-
bach, the teacher of Regiomontanus. But the use of the plumb-line had
long been known to the Arabs, as we learn by Abul-Hassan- All's compendious
description of astronomical instruments, written in the 13th century : Sedil-
lot, Traite des instrumens astronomiques des Arabes, 1835, p. 379 ; 1841^
p. 205.

(^) p. 259. — In all the writings on the art of navigation which I have
examined, I jQnd the erroneous opinion that the Log, for the measurement of
the distance passed over, has only been in use since the end of the 16th or
the beginiing of the 17th century. In the Encyclopeedia Britannlca (7th.
edition, 1842), Vol. xiii. p. 416, it is still said : ** The author of the device
for measuring the ship's way is not known, and no mention of it occurs tiH
the year 1607, in an East India voyage, published by Purchas." This year
i$ also named as the extreme limit in all earlier and later dictionaries.-—

TOL, n. 2 a

m T

IxXXii NOTES.

— (Oehler, JBd. yi. 1881, S. 450.) It \s ovlj NaTarrete, in the I^neitaabi
sobre los progresos del Arte de Navegar, 1802, who places the use of the
AOg-line in English ships in the year 1577. — (Doflot de Mofras, Notice Ido-
graphique sur Mendoza et Navarrete, 1845, p. 64.) Sabseqnently he affiaos
in another place (Colecdon de losYiages de los EspaAoles, T. iv, 1837,p. 97)i
that " in Magellan's time the ship's speed was only estimated by* the eye {i
bjo), nntU in the 16th century the corredera (the log) was devised." T%e
measurement of the distance sailed over by means of heaving the log, althoiigl
this means most in itself be termed imperfect, has become of such great im-
portance towards a knowledge of the velocity and direction of ooeaoie
currents, that I have been led to make it an oliject of carefnl research. I
give here the principal results which are contained in the 6th and still unpaid
lished volume of my Examen critique de Thistoire de la Geographie et dei
progr^ de TAstronomie nautique. The Romans, in the time of the republic
had in their ships apparatus for measuring the dLstance passed oyer, consist-
ing of wheels fovr feet high provided with paddles placed outside the ship,
just as in our steamboats, and as in the apparatus for propelling vessels whirii
Blasco de Garay had proposed in 1 543 at Barcelona to the Emperor Charles V.
— (Arago, Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes, 1829, p. 152.) The ancient
Roman way-measurer (ratio a migoribus tradita, qua in via rheda sedeata
vel mari navigantes scire possumus quot millia numero itineris feoerimus) is
described in detail by Yitruvius (lib. x. cap. 14), the credit of whose Augostu
age has indeed been recently much shaken by C. Schultz and Osann. By
means of three toothed wheels acting on each other, and by the falling of
small round stones from a wheel-case (loculamentum) having only a sing^
hole, the number of revolutions of the outside wheels which dipped in theses
and the number of miles passed through in the day's course, were j^veo.
Whether these hodometers were much used in the Mediterranean, ''as th^
fuight afford both use and pleasure," Yitruvius does not say. In the biogor
pby of the Emperor Pertinaz by Julius Capitolinus, mention is made of the
purchase of the effects left by the Emperor Commodns, among which was a
travelling carriage provided with a similar hodcnnetric apparatus.^ — (Cap. 8 ia
Hist. Augusts Script, ed. Lugd. Bat. 1671, T. i. 554.) The wheeb gave li
once " the measure of the distance passed over and the duration of the jour-
ney" in hours. A much more perfect hodometer used both on the water and
on land has been described by Hero of Alexandria, the pupil of Ctesibios, ia
his Greek still Inedited manuscript on the Bioptra. — (See Yentnri, Gonmient'
sopra hi Storia deU' Ottica, Bologna, 1814, T. i p. 134—189.) We iai

NOTES. Ixxxiii

iioihing on the snlject we are considering, in the literature of the middle
ages, until we come to the period of several " books of Nautical Instruction,"
written or printed in quick succession by Antonio Pigafetta (Trattato di Navi-
gazione, probably before 1530) ; Francisco Falero (1585, a brother of the
astronomer Ruy Fal^ro, who ^ras to have accompanied Magellan on his voy-
age round the world, and left behind him a Kegimiento para observar la Ion-
gitud en la mar) ; Pedro de Medina of Seville (Arte de Navegar, 1545) ; Mar-
tin Cortes of Bujalaroz (Breve Compendio de la esfera y de la arte de navegar,
1551) ; and Andres Garcia de Cespedes (Regimiento de Navigacion y Hidro-
grafia, 1606). Prom almost all these works, some of which have become
extremely rare, as well as from the Suma de Geografia which Martin Per-
iiandez de Enciso had published in 1519, we recognise most distinctly that
navigators were taught to estimate the *' distance sailed over" in Spanish and
Portuguese ships, not by any distinct measurement, but only by estimation or
appreciation by the eye, according to certain established principles. Medina
says (libro iii. cap. 11 and 12), "to know the course of the ship as to the
length of distance passed over, the pilot must set down in his register how
much distance she has made according to hours (t. e, guiding himself by the
hourglass, ** ampolleta,") and fo/ this he must know that the most a ship
advances in an hour is four mi]es, and with feebler breezes three, or only two."
Cespedes (Regimiento, p. 99 and 156) calls this mode of proceeding "echar
punto por fantasia." This fantasia, as Enciso justly remarks, depends, if
great errors are to be avoided, on the pilot's knowledge of the qualities of his
ship: on the whole, however, every one who has been long at sea will have
Remarked with surprise, when the waves are not very high, how nearly the mere
estimation of the ship's velocity accords with the subsequent result obtained by
the log. Some Spanish pilots call the old, and it must be admitted hazardous,
method of mere estimation (cuenta de estima), sarcastically, and certainly very
incorrectly, "la corredera de los Holandeses, corredera de les perezosos." In
Columbus's ship's journal, frequent reference is made to the contest with Alouso
Finzon as to the distance passed over since their departure from Palos. ^le
hour or sandglasses, ampolletas, which they made use of, ran out in half an
hour, so that the interval of a day and night was reckoned at 48 ampolletas.
In this important journal of Columbus, it is said (for example on the 22d of
January, 1493) : " Andaba 8 millas "por hora hasta pasa^Ias 5 ampolletas, y
•3 antes que comenzase la guardia, que eran 8 ampoHetas." — (Navarrete, T. i.
'p. 143.) The Log (la corredera) is never mentioned. Are Vc to assume
that Columbus was acquainted with ahd employed it^ but that, being a mt^m

Ixxxiv NOTES.

already in veiy general nae, he did not think it necessaiy to name it? in tk
lame way tliat Marco Polo does not mention tea, or the great wall of Chioi.
Sach an asaumption appears to me ray improbable, even if there were m
other reason, because I find in the proposals made by the pilot Don JspK
Ferrer, 1496, for the exact examination of the position of the Papal line of
demarcation, that, when it is question of the determinatiim of the diitsDoe
sailed oyer, the appeal is made only to the aeeordant eentenee (jnido) of
20 very experienced manners (que apnnten en sn carta de 6 en 6 horn cl
camino que la nao fara segun su juieio.) If the log had been in use, no dooM
Ferrer would have prescribed how often it should be hove. I find the fint
application of the log in a passage of Pigafetta's Journal of Magellan's vojige
of circumnavigation, which long lay buried among the mannacripts in tk
Ambrosian Library at Milan. It is said in it, that, in the month of Jaouij
1521, when Magellan had already arrived in the Pacific, " Secondo la miann
che facevamo del viaggio ooUa catena a poppa, noi peroorrevamo da 60 in 70
leghe al giomo." — (Amoretti, Primo Viaggio intomo al Globo tenraoqoeo,
ossia Navigazione feitta dal Cavaliere Antonio Pigafetta sulla squadra del Ci|l
Magaglianes, 1800, p. 46.) What can this arrangement of a chain at tk
hinder part of the ship (catena a poppa), " which we used throoghoot the
entire voyage to measure the way," have been other than an apparatus similar
to our log ? The "running out" log-line divided into knots, the log-ship,aDdtk
half-minute or log-glasses are not mentioned ; but this silence need not sor*
prise us in speaking of a long-known matter. In the part of the Trattato di
Navigazione of the Cavaliere Pigafetta given by Amoretti in extracts, anKWit*
ing indeed only to 10 pages, the " catena della poppa" is not again mentioDBi

(*») p. 259.— Barros, Dec. I. liv. iv. p. 320.

(*^ p. 261.— Examen crit. T. i. p. 3—6 and 290.

{^) p. 262. — Compare Opus Epistolarmn Petri Martyris Anglerii Mefio-
lanensis, 1670, ep. cxxx. and clii. " Pfk Isetitia prosilisse te, vixqoe i
lachrymis prse gaudio temperasse qnando literas adspexisti meas, qmbos (k
antipodium orbe, latenti hactenas, te certiorem feci, mi suavissime Pompooi
insinuasti. Ex tuis ipse Uteris coUigo, quid senseris. Sensisti autem, tia-
tique rem fecisti, quanti vimm summa doctrina insignitum decuit. Qms nam*
que cibus sublimibns prsestari potest ingeniis isto suavior? quod condimeii*
turn gratius ? & me facio conjecturam. Bean sentio spiritus meos, qnando
accitos alloquor prudentes aliquos ex his qui ab ea redeunt provincia (BJsgtf
niola insula.") The expression, ** Christophorus quidam Colonus," reminii
PS, I will not say of the too often and nzyostly quoted " uescio quia SidM*

KOT£S. IxXXV

dhoB** of AuIha Gellitis (Noct. Attica, zi. 16), bat of the "qnodam Comelio
seribente," in tbe auBwer of the king Theodoiic to the prince of the JBstyans,
who was to be informed respecting the true origin of amber from^ the Germ,
cap. 45, of Tacitus.

(***) p. 202. — Opus Epistol. No. ccccxxxvii. and dlxii. An ertraordinary
person, Hieronymns Cardanus, a £uitastic enthusiast and at the same time ^
•cute mathematician, also calls attention in his *' physical problems" to how
much of the knowledge of the earth consisted in fects to the observation of
which one man has led. Cardani Opera, ed. Lugdun. 1663, T. ii. Frobl. p»
680 and 659 ; " at nunc quibus te laudibus afferam Christophore Columbi
non ffunilia tantum, non G^uensis urbis, non Italiss Frovinciffi, non Europn
partis orbis solum, sed humani generis decus." In comparing the *' pro«
blems" of Cardanus with those of the later Aristotelian school, amidst the
confusion and the feebleness of the physical explanations which prevail
almost equally in both collections, I remark in Oardanus a circumstance
which appears to me eharacteristic of the sadden enlargement of geography
at that epoeh ; namely, that the greater part of his proUems relate to compa-
rati.ve meteorology. I allude to the considerations on the warm insular di*
mate of En^and in contrast with the winter at Milan ; — on tiie dependence
of hail on electric explosions; — on the cause and direction of oceanic cur-
rents ;— on the maxima of atmospheric heat and cold not arriving until after
the summer and winter solstices ; — on the elevation of the region of snow
under the tropics ; — on the temperature dependent on the radiation of heat
fix>m the sun and from all the heavenly bodies ;— on the greater intensity of -
hght in the southern hemisphere, &c. — " Cold is merely absence of heat.
Light and heat differ only in name, and are in themselves inseparable." Car-
dani 0pp. T. i. de vita propria, p. 40 ; T. ii. Probl 621, 680-*«32, 653 and '
718 ; T. iii. de subtilitate, p. 417.

O p. 263.— See my Eiamen crit. T. ii. p. 210—249. Accordmg to
the manuscript, Historia general de las Indias, lib. i. cap. 12, "la carta de
marear que Maestro Paula Hsico . (Toscanelli) envio a Colon" was in the
hands of Bartholom^ de las Casas when he wrote his work. Columbus's
ship's journal, of which we possess an extract (Navarrete, T. i. p. 13), does
not quite agree with the relation which I find in a manuscript written by Las
Casas, which was kindly communicated to me by M. Ternaux-Compans.
rhe ship's journal says, " Iba hablando el Almirante (martes 25 de Setiembre,
1492) con Martin Alonso Pinzon, capitan de la otra carabela Pinta, sobra
^m$ carta qofi le habia enviado tres dias hacia a la carabela, donde sefsan

IxXXVi NOTES,

parece tenia pinktdaa W Almirante ciertas ialas por aqneUa mar .... * b
the manaseript of Las Caaas (lib. i. cap. 12), on the other hand, I find, "Ii
carta de marear que embid (ToscaiieUi al Almirante) jo que esta hutom
tcrivo la teogo en mi poder. Creo que todo an viage aobre esta carta Amdo;"
(lib. i. cap. 88) "aai faii qoe d maites 25 de Setiembre llegase Martiir AIodm
Finzon con an carayela Pinta a hablar oon Chriatobal Colon aobre una cuti
de marear qne Chriatobal Colon le avia embiado .... JSsta carta eglapteU
unhid Paulo linco el FlorenHn, la qual yo tengo en mi poder oon otras oooi
del Almirante 7 escritoras de an misma mano qne traz^on k mi poder. Ea

ella le pinto muchas ialas " Are we to aaanme that the Admiral In'

drawn upon the mi^ of ToscaneUi the islands which he expected to find, «
does " tenia pintadas" merely mean " the Admiral had a map on which wot
painted "?

(^*) p. 264.— Navanete, Boeomentos, No. 69» in T. iii. der Viaga f
Deecnbr. p. 565—571 ; Ezamen crit. T. i. p. 234—249 and 252, T. iiL p.
158 — 165 and 224. Respecting the contested spot of the first landing is
the West Indies, see T. iii. p. 186—222. The map of the world of Juan h
la (Dosa, which has acquired so mnch edebrity, and which was diaoovered I7
Walckenaer and myself in the year 1832, daring the cholera epidonie, sad
which was drawn six years before the death of Cdmnbns, has thrown oar
light on these contested questions.

. (^^ p. 265. — Bespecting Colnmbns's graphical and often poetical descrip-
tions of nature, see above, Kosmos, Bd. iL S. 55—57 (Engl. edit. VoL iL p.
54—56).

. (^^ p. 266. — See the results of my investigations, in the Relation hist. ^
Voyage aux B^ons equinoxiales dn nonvean Continent, T. ii. p. 702; vA
in the Examen crit. de THist de la Creographie, T. i. p. 309.

(«>«) p. 266.— Biddle, Memoir of Sebastian Cabot, 1831, p. 52—61;.
Examen crit. T. iv. p. 231.

if^) p. 266.— In a part of C>>lumbas'8 Journal (Nov. 1, 1492) which hir
teoeiyed but little attention, it is said, " I have (in Cuba) opposite and neir
to me Zayto y Gninsay (Zaitun and Quinsay, Marco Pdo, ii 77) dd Gna
Can." Navarrete, Viages y Descubrim. de los Espafioles, T. i. p. 46 ; airf
above, note 875. The curve towards the south, which Cohunbns on Ui
second Voyage remarked in the most western part of the coast of Cabii
had an important influence, as I have dsewhere obsetved, on the discovery of
South America, and on that of the Delta of the Orinoco and Cape Faria ; Ml
Examen crit. T. iv* p, 246—250. Anghiera (Epiat. dxviii. ed. Apist. 167<V

NOTES. Ixxxvii

£. 96) writes, " Putat (Colonns) regiones has (Parise) esse Cnbee contiguas et
adhserentes : ita quod utrseque sint ludise Gangetidis continens ipsum . . . ."
i C****) P- 267. — See the important manuBcript of Andres Bernaldez, Cura de
la Villa de los Palacios (Historia de los Reyes Catholicos, cap. 123). This
l^story comprises the years 1488 to 1513. Bemaldez had received Columbus,
ifx 1496, on his return from his second voyage, into his house. By the par-
ticular kindness of M. Ternaux-C!ompans, to whom the History of the Con-
qoista owes many important elucidations, I was enabled to make a free us^
lA Bee. 1838, at Paris, of this manuscript, which was in the possession
qf my distinguished friend the historiographer, Don Joan Bautista Mufios
(fiftmyaie Fern. Colon, Yida del Almirante, cap. 56).
I {*^7) p. 267.— Examen crit. T. iii. p, 244—248,

• (*^ P* 268. — Cape Horn was discovered in February 1826, by Frandsoo
de Hoces, in the expedition of the Commendador Garcia de Loaysa, which,,
fpllowiug that of Magellan, was destined for the Moluccas. Whilst Loaysa
flailed through the Straits of Magellan, Hoces, with his Caravel, the Sai^
Lesmes^ was; separated from the flotilla, and driven as far as 55° S. latitude.
"D>yQi»n los del buque que les parecia que era aUi acabamiento de tierra"
(Navanrete, Yiages de los Espanoles, T. v. p. 28 and 404^-488). - Flenrieu
Qoaiqtains that Hoces only saw the Cabo del buen Successo, west of Staten*
Island. Such a strange uncertainty respecting the form of the land prevailed
anew towards the end of the 16th century, that the author of the Araucana
(Canto i. oot. 9) could believe that the Magellanic straits had closed by an
.earthquake, and by the raising of the bottom of the sea ; and, on the other
hand, Aoosta (Historia natural y moral de las Indias, lib. iii. cap. 10) took
tiie Terra del Fuego for the beginning of a great south polar land. (Compare
also Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 62 and 124 ; Engl. edit. Vol. ii. p. 60 and Note 96.)
: (^ p. 268. — ^The question, whether the isthmus-hypothesis, according
to which Cape Prasum, on the east of Africa, joined on to an east Asiatic
isthmus from Thinse, is to be traced back to Marinns of Tjie, or to Hipparchus,
QT to the Babylonian Seleucus, or rather to Aristotle de Coelo (ii. 14), has
been treated by me in detail in another work (Examen crit. T. i. p. 144, 161,
and 329 i T. ii. p. 370—372).

(^ p. 269. — Paolo Toscandli was so much distinguished as an astronomer,
that Behaim's teacher, Regiomontanus, dedicated to him, in 1463, his work
'* De Qaadratnra Circuli," directed against the Cardinal Nicolaus de Cusa.
He constructed the great gnomon in the Church of Santa Maria Novella at
floreni^ and died in 1482, at the age of 85, without having lived bng

IxXXViii NOTES.

enongli to enjoy the tidings of the discover of the C^pe of Oood Ht^e V
Bias, and that of the tropical part of the new oontinent hy Coliimbiia.

(^') p. 270. — ^As the old continent, from the western extremity of fk
Iheriau peninsnla to the coast of China, comprehends afanosft 130^ of longi-
tude, there remain ahont 230^ as the space which Colombiis ilioiild have had
to traverse to reach Cathaj (China) ; bat leas if he only proposed to Rsch
Zipangi (Japan). This diiference of 230*^ which I have taken, is between tlis
Portngnese Cape St. Vincent (ll"" 20" W. of Paris), and the fiur ^cgectiiig
part of the Chinese coast near the then so cdebrated port of Qoinsay, so oftoi
aamed by Colnmbns and Toscanelli (hit. 30*" 28^ long. 117^ 4,7' £. of Paiii).
(Synonymes for Uuinsay in the province of Tschekiang aie Kanfo, Hang-
tscheufu, Kingszu.) The general commerce in the east of Asia was shared, n
tiie 13th century, between Qninsay and Zaitnn (Pinghai or Tseuthimg) t^po-
site to the iskmd of Formosa (then Tnngfan) in SS"" 5' N. kt. (see lOapratl;,
Tableau hist, de TAsie, p. 227). The distaoee of Cape St. Vincent inm
Zipangi (Niphon) is 22° of longitude less than from Qninsay, or about 209*
instead of 230° 53^ It is a striking circmnstanoe that, throngh aoeideatal
compensations, the oldest statements, those of Eratosthenes, and Strabo (Kb.
i. p. 64), come within 10° of the above mentioned resailt of 129° for the
difference of longitude of the oficov/*cn|. Strabo, in the very place where h»
allndes to the possible existence of two great habitable continents in the
northern hemisphere, says that our oixovfurrf in the paralld of Thinse (AtiMSi^
see Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 223 ; Engl. edit. Vol. ii. p. 188) takes more than eie^
third of the earth's circumference. Marinus of 1^, being misled by the .
length of the time occupied in the navigation from Myos Hormos to Lidia»
by the erroneously assumed direction of the greater axis of the Caspian fron
east to west, and by the over estimation of the length of the route by land ts
the country of the Seres, gave to the old continent a breadth of 22&° instead
of 129°, thus advancing the Chinese coast to the Sandwidi Islands Colnmlns
naturally preferred this result to that of Ptolemy, according to whieh QoinH^
should have been found in the meridian of the eastern part of the ardii^dsgo
of the Carolinas. Ptolemy, in the Almagest ^. 1), places the coast of ths
Sins at 180° ; and in his Geography (Ub. i. cap. 12), at 177i°. As Golumbas
estimated the navigation from Iberia to the Sines at 120°, and Toscanelli evea
at only 52°, they might both, esti-nating the loigth of the Meditcgmmean st
about 40°, have natnraUy eallel the apparently so hazardous enterprise only
a "brevissimo camino.*' Martin Behaim, also, on his "world apple" (the
celebrated globe which he finidlied in 1492. and which ia still kept in ths

NOTESf Ixxxix

Behaim house at Nuremberg), places the coast of China (or the throue of the
king of Mango, Camhalu, and Cathay) only 100** west of the Azores, i, e, as
Behaim lived four years at Fayal, and probably counted the distance from
that point, 119** 40' west of Cape St. Vincept." Columbus was probably
acquainted with Behaim at Lisbon, where they both lived from, 1480 to 1484
(see my Bxamen crit. de THist. de la Geographic, T. ii. p. 357 — 869). The
many wholly erroneous numbers which are to be found in all the writings on
the discovery of America, and the then supposed extent of Eastern Asia, have
induced me to compare more closely the opinions of the middle ages with
those of classical antiquity.

(^ p. 270. — ^The eastern part of the Pacific was first navigated by white
men in a boat, when Alonso Martin de Don Benito, (who had seen the sea
horizon with Vasco Nunez de Balboa on the 25th September, 1513, firom the
little Sierra de Quarequa), descended a few days afterwards to the Golfo de
San Miguel, before Balboa went through the ceremony of taking possession
of the ocean ! Seven months previously Balboa had announced to his court
that the South Sea, of which he had heard firom the natives, was very eaay to
navigate : " mar muy mansa y que nunca anda brava como la mar de nnestra
banda^' (de las Antillos). The name Oceano Pacifico, however, was, as Piga-
fetta t^Ils us, first given by Magellan to the Mar del Sur (Balboa's name).
In August 1519 (before Magellan's expedition), the Spanish government,
which was not wanting in watchfulness ^d activity, had given secret orders,
in November 1514, to Pedrarius Davila, Governor of the province of Castilla
del Oro (the northwestemmost of South America), and to the great navigator
Juan Diaz de Solis ; — to the first to have four caravels built in the Golfo de
San Miguel " to make discoveries in the newly discovered South Sea" ; and
to the second, to seek for an opening (" abertura de la tierra") from the
eastern coast of America, with the view of arriving at the back (" a' espel-
das") of the new country, «. e. of the sea-surrounded western portion of
Castilla del Oro. The expedition of Solis (October 1515 to August 1516)
led him far to the south, and to the discovery of the Rio de la Plata, which
was long called the Rio de Solis. (Compare, respecting the little known first
discovery of the Pacific, Petrus Martyr, Bpist. dxl. p. 296, with the docu-
ments of 1513 — 1515 in Navarrete, T. iii. p. 134 and 357; also my Examea
crit. T. i. p. 820 and 350.)

(^ p. 270. — ^Respecting the geographical position of the Deeventuradas'
(San Pabb, lat. 16i® S. long., 135f° west of Pans; Isla de Tibiurones, lat.
10f° S., long. 145° W.), see my Examen crit. T. i. p. 286; and Navarrete,

T. ir* p. lix. 52, 218, and 267. The great epoch of geogn^hical diieoferai
gave occasioii to many snch iloitrioaB heraldic bearings as that meutioned in
the text ; (the terrestrial globe, with the inscription " Primus circomdeduti
me," to Sebastian de Elcanoand his descendants). The arms which, as eariy
as May 1493, were given to Golnmbns, " para snblimarlo" with posteri^,
contain the first map of America — a range of islands in front of a golf
(Oviedo, Hist, general de las Indias, ed. de 1547, lib. ii. cap. 7, foL 10 a;
Navarrete, T. ii. p. 37 ; Examen crit. T. iv. p. 236). The Emperor Chirla
y. gave to Diego de Ordaz, who boasted of having ascended the volcano tit
Orizaba, the drawing of that conical mountain ; and to the historian Oriedo,
who resided nninterruptedlj for 84 years (from 1513 to 1547) in tropkal
America, the four stars of the southern cross, as armorial bearings (Oviedo^
Ub. iL cap. 11, foL 16 b).

(^) p. 271. — See my Essai politique sur le Boyanme de la Noavdk
Espagne, T. iL 1827, p. 259 ; and Frescott, History of the Conquest d
Mexico (New Yoric, 1843), YoL iiL p. 271 and 336.
, (^) p. 273. — Gaetano discovered one of the Sandwich Islands in IMS.
Respecting the voyage of Don Jorge de Menezes (1526), and that of Alnio
de Saavedra (1528), to the Ilhas de Fapuas, see Barros da Asia, Dec. iv. Uf.
i, cap. 16, and Navarrete, T. v. p. 125. The " Hydrography" of Job. Bob
(1542), which is preserved in the British Museum, and has been examinei
by the learned DahTmple, contains outlines of New Holland ; as does also tbe
oollectionof maps of Jean Yalard of Dieppe (1552), for the first knowledge
oi which we are indebted to M. Goquebert Monbret.

(^ p. 273. — ^Affcer the death of Mendafta, the command of the expeditios,
which did not terminate until 1596, was undertaken in the South Sea by hii
wife, Doi&a Isabela Biuretos, a woman of distinguished personal courage, ad
great mental endowments (Essai polit. sur la Nouv. Espagne, T. iv. p. Ill-}
Quires practised distillation of fresh from salt water on a considerable sesk
in his ship, and hip example was followed in several instances (Navarrete
T. i. p. liii.) The entire operation, as I have elsewhere proved, on the testi*
mony of Alexander of Aphrodisias, ¥ras known as early as the third centaiy
of onr era, although not then practised in ships.

i*^ p. 273. — See the excellent work of Professor Meinicke at Prendai,
entitled, " Das Festland Australian, eine geogr. Monographic," 1837, Th. l
S. 2—10.

(*») p. 276. — ^Thia king died in the time of the Mexican king Axyacatl,
who reigned from 1464 to 1477. The learned native Mexican histoiiao,.

NOTES. XCl

Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, whose mannsciipt chroniele of the Cbichi-
meqnes, which I saw, in 1803, in the palace of the Viceroy of Mexico, and
which Mr. Prescott has made such happy use of. in his work (Conquest of
Mexico, Vol. i. p. 61, 173, and 206 ; Vol. iii. p. 112), was a descendant of
the poet king Nezahualcoyotl. The Aztec name of the historian, Fernando de
Alva, signifies Vanilla faced. M. Temaux-Compans, in 1840, printed a
Trench translation of this manuscript in Paris. The notice of the long ele-
phant's hair which Cadamosto collected, is to be. found in Bamusio, Vol. i. p.
109, and in GrTueeus^ cap. 43, p. 83.

(*») p. 277.— Clavigero, Storia antica del Messico (Cesena, 1780) T. ii. p.
158. The accordant testimonies of Heman Cortes, in his reports to the
Emperor Charles V., of Bemal Diaz, Gomara» Oviedo, and Hernandez, leave-
no doubt that at the time of the conquest of Montezuma's empire, there were.
in no part of Europe menageries and botanic gardens (collections of livings
Animnlft and plants) which could be compared to those of Huaxtepee, Chapol-*
tapec, Iztapalapan, and Tezcuco (Prescott, Vol. i. p. 178 ; Vol. ii. p. 66 and
117; Vol. iii. p. 42). Bespecdng the early attention stated in the text to
have been paid to the fossil bones in the American " fields of giants," see
Garcilaso, lib. ix. cap. 9 ; Acosta, lib. iv. cap. 80 ; and Hernandez (ed. of
1656), T. i. cap. 82, p. 105.

(^ p. 279. — Observations de Christophe Golomb sur le Passage de la
Polaire par l6 Meridien» in my Relation hist. T. i. p. 506, and in the Examen
crit. T. iii. p. 17 — 20, 44 — 51, and 56 — 61. (Compare also Navarrete, in
Columbus's Journal of 16 to 30 Sept. 1492, p. 9, 15, and 254.)
. (^0 P* ^3^' — Respecting the singular differences of the Bula de ooncesioa
B los Reyes Catholicos de las Indias descubiertas y que se descrubieren of 8;
Hay, 1493, and the Bula de Alexandro VI. sobre la particion del oceano of
Hay 4, 1498 (elucidated in the Bula de estension of the 25th of September,
1493), see Examen crit. T. iii. p. 52 — 54. Very different from this line,
of demarcation is that settled in the Capituladon de la Particion del Mar
Oceano entare los Reyes Catholicos y Don Juan, Rey de Portugal, of the 7th
June, 1494, 370 legnas (17§ to an equatorial degree) west of the Cape Verd
Islands. (Compare Navarrete, C<deccion de los Viages y Descubr. de los Esp.,
T. ii. p. 28—35, 116—143, and 404; T. iv. p. 55 and 252). This last
named line, whidi led to the sale of the Moluccas (de el Maluco) to Portugal,
1529, for the sum of 850000 gold ducats, had no connection with magnetical
or meteorological fieincies. The papal lines of demarcation, however, deserve
more.earefal consideration in the present work, because, as I have mentioned

Zdi NQfTES.

in the text, tiuj exercised greet inflaence on the endeorours to impnit
nautical astronomy, and eepeciallj the methods ot finding the longitude. U
is also very deserving of notice, that the capitidation of Jane 7> 1494, affordi
the first example of a proposal to fix a meridian in a permanent manner lij
marks graven in rocks, or bj the erection of towers. It is commanded, "goe
se haga algana seftal 6 tone" wherevei the dividing meridian, in its comse
from pole to pole, whether in the esstem or the western hemisphere, into*
sects an island or a continent. In continents, the raya was to be msiked, at
proper intervals, by a series of snch marks or towers; which wonld, isM,
have been no small midertaking.

(^ p. 280. — ^It is a remarkable fiict, that the earliest daasioil writer (n
terrestrial magnetism, William Gilbert, who we cannot snf^oee to have hd
any knowledge of Chinese literature, yet regards the mariner'a compass ss s
Chinese invention, which had been brought to Europe hy Maroo Pola
'^Ula quidem pyxide nihil nnqnam humanis exoogitatnm artibns humno
generi profoisse magis, constat. Scientia nautice pyzidnlse tradncta videtv
in Italiam per Paulum Yenetnm, tfai circa annum mcdx. apnd Chinas artea
pyxidis dididt" (Guilielmi Oilberti Colcestrensis, Medici Tiondinensw, k
Magnete Physiologia nova, Lond. 1600, p. 4). There are, however, ii0
grounds for the supposition that the compass was introduced by Marco Folob
whose travels were from 1271 to 1 295, and who therefore returned to Itilf
after the mariner's compass had been spoken of by Gnyot de Provins in Ia
poem, as well as by Jacques de Vitiy and Dante, as a long known instnuneDl
Before Maroo Polo set out on his traveb in the middle of the 13th oeatoiy,
Catalans and Basques already made use of the compass (see Baymond Lnllji
in the treatise De Contemplatione, written in 1272).

(^ p. 282.^For the anecdote respecting Sebastian Cabot^ see BiMe'i
Memoirs of that celebrated navigator : a work written with a good histoiiGd
and critical spirit (p. 222). "We know," says Biddle, ''with certaiBly
neither the date of the death nor the burying place of the great navigate
who gave to Great Britain almost an entire continent, and without whom («
without Sir Walter Raleigh), the English language would perhaps not baft
been spoken by many millions who now inhabit America." BespectiBg tk
materials from which the variation-chart of Alonzo de Santa Cruz vras oan*
piled, as weD as respecting the variation-compass, of which the constmetisB
was already such as to permit altitudes of the sun to be taken at the saot
time, see Navarrete, Noticia biografica del Cosmografo Alonao de Santa Oniii
p. 3 — 8. The first variation-compass was constructed before 1525, by a.

NOTES. XCU^

'ingenious apothecary of Seville, Felipe Gnillen. So earnest were the en-
deavours to learn more exactly the direction of the curves of magnetic decli-
nation, that in 1585 Juan Jayme sailed with rrandsco Gali from Manila t6
Acapulco for the sole purpose of trying in the FaciiSc a declination instrument
which he had invented. See my Essai politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne, T.
ir. p. 110.

(«*) p. 282.— Acosta, ffist. natnrai de las Indias, Hb. i. cap. 17. These
four magnetic lines of no variation led Halley, by the contests between Henry
Bond and Beckborrow, to the theory of four magnetic poles.

(^) p. 282.— Gilbert de Magnete Physiologia nova, lib. v. cap. 8, p. 200.

(**) p. 283. — ^In the temperate and cold zones, the inflexion of the iso-
thermal lines is general between the west coast of Europe and the east coast
of America, but within the tropics the isothermal lines run almost parallel to
the equator ; and in the hasty conclusions into which Columbus suffered him-
self to be led, no account was taken of the difference between sea and land
climates, or between east and west coasts, or of the influence of winds, — as
in the case of winds blowing over Africa. Compare the remarkable conside-
rations on climates which are brought together in the Yida del Almirante
(cap. 66). The early conjecture of Columbus respecting the curvature of the
isothermal lines in the Atlantic Ocean was well founded, if we limit it to the
extra-tropical (temperate and Mgid) zones.

(^ p. 283. — ^An observation of Columbus (Yida del Almirante, cap. 55 ;
Examen crit. T. iv. p. 253 ; Kosmoe, Bd. i. S. 479 (Engl. edit. Vol. i. note
888).

(^ p. 283.— The admiral, says Fernando Colon (Vida del Aim. cap. 58)
ascribed the many refreshing falls of rain, which cooled the air whilst he was
sailing along the coast of Jamaica, to the extent and denseness of the forests
which clothe the, mountains. He takes this opportunity of remarking, in his
ship's journal, that " formerly there Was as mnch rain in Madeira, the Cana-
ries, and the Azores; but since the trees which shaded the ground Bave been
cut down, rain has become much more rare." This warning has remained
almost unheedecT for three centuries and a half.

(«) p. 284.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 355 and 482 (Engl. edit. Vol. i. p. 827,
and note 400) ; Examen crit. T. iv. p. 294 ; Asie centrale, T. iii. p. 235. The
inscription of Adulis, which is almost fifteen hundred years older than
Anghiera, speaks of " Abyssijuaa now in which a man may sink up to the
knees.'*

Xav NOTES.

(*^ p. 285. — Leonardo da Viuci says Tery finelj of this prooeediag. "tpeb
e il methodo da oaservarsi nella rioerca de* fenomeni ddia natnnu" See Yet
turi, Esaai sur lea Onvragea physico-matMmatiqaes de Leonaid da Vind, 1797,
p. 31 ; Amoretti, Memorie storiche ail la Vita di Uonardo da Yinci, Milano,
1S04, p. 143 (in Ma edition of the Trattato deUa Pittnra, T. zxxiiL of tb
Classid Italiani) ; Whewell, Fhiloa. of the Indnctive Sdenoea, 1840, YaLiL
p. 868—370 ; Brewster, Life of Newton, p. 332. Most of Leonaido da
Vinci's physical worka hdong to the year 1498.

(^') p. 286. — ^The great attention paid by the early navigators to natont
phenomena may be seen in the oldest Spanish aooonnta. Diego de Lepe^ ibr
example, (aa we learn ftv>m a witness in the law-snit against the hm d
Colnmbus,) by means of a vessel provided with valves, which did not opei
ontil it had reached the bottom, found that at a distance from the moatii d
the Orinoco, a stratum of fresh water of 6 fathoms depth flowed ova- the att
water (Navarrete, Viages y Descubrim. T. iii. p. 549). Columbus, on tk
south of the ooaat <^ Cuba, took up milk-white sea-water ("white as if mol
had been mixed with it") to be carried to Spain in bottles (Yida del Aliot-
rante, p. 56). I was myself at the same spots, for the purpose of detennimqg
longitades, and was surprised that the milk-white discolouration of sea-wato;
so common on shoals, should have appeared to the experienced admiral a net
and unexpected phenomenon. In what relates to the gulf-stream itself wbieb
must be regarded as an impcHrtant cosmical phenomenon, various effects piO'
duced by it had been observed, long before the discoveiy of America^ by tbe
sea washing on ^ore at the Canaries and the Azores stems of bamboos, trosis
of pines, corpses of foreign aspect from the Antilles, and even living men n
canoes " which could not sink." But all this was then attributed sol^ ts
the strength of westerly tempests (Vida del Almirante, cap. 8 ; Hezrera, Bgcl
i. lib. i. cap. 2, lib. ix. cap. 12) ; there was as. yet no recognition of tki
movement of the waters which is independent of the direction of the YibA,
viz. the returning stream of the oceanic current, which brings ereif
year tropical fruits from the West India Islands to the coasts of Ireland ani
Norway. Compare the Memoir of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, On the PossilH%
of a North-west Passage to Cathay, in HaMuyt, Navigations and Yopffs,
Vol. iii. p. 14 ; Herrera, Dec. i. lib. ix. cap. 12 ; and Ezamen crit T. ii p>
■247—257, T. iii. p. 99—108.

^ (*»?) p. 287.— Examen crit. "f. iii. p. 26 and 66— .99 ; Koamo^ Bd. i &
823 and 330 (Engl. ed. Vol. i. p. 301 and 303).

NOTES. XC>

(*®) p. 287. — Alonso de Ercilla has imitated the passage of Garcilaso in
the Araucana : " Climas passe, mnd^ constelaciones /' see Kosmos, Bd. it
S. 121, Anm. 62 (Engl. ed. Vol. ii. note 62).

O p. 289. — Pet. Mart. Ocean. Dec. I. lib. ii. p. 96; Eiamen crit.
T. iv. p. 221 and 317.

(f^) p. 289. — Acosta, Hist, natoral de las Indias, lib. i. cap. 2 ; Rigand,
Account of Harriot's Astron. Papers, 1833, p. 37.

(^ p. 289. — Pigafetta, Primo Viaggio intorao al Globo terracqneo, pubbl.
da C. Amoretti, 1800, p." 46 ; Ramusio, Vol. i. p. 855 c ; Petr. Mart. Oceaii.
Dec. III. lib. i. p. 217. (Prom the events to which Anghiera refers, Dec. II.
ib. X. p. 204, and Dec. III. lib. x. p. 232, the passage of the OoeanicH
which speaks of the Magellanic clouds must have been written between 1514
and 1516.) Andrea Corsali (Ramusio, Vol. i. p. 177) also describes in a let-
ter to Giuliano de Medici the movement of translation of "due nugolette di
ragionevol grandezza." The star which he represents between Nubecula
major and minor appears to me to be /8 Hydrse (Examen crit. T. v. p. 234 —
238). Respecting Petrus Theodor of Emden and Houtman, the pupil of the
mathematician Plancius, see an historical article by Olbers, in Schumachers
Jahrbuch ftir 1840, S. 249.

(**0 p. 291. — Compare the researches of Delambre and Encke with Ideler,
Ursprung der Stemnamen, S. xlix. 263 and 277 ; also my Examen crit.
T. iv. p. 319—324 ; T. v. p. 17—19, 30 and 230—234.

(**8) p. 291.— Plin. ii. 70; Ideler, Stemnamen, S. 260 and 295.

(*®) p. 292. — I have attempted in another place to dispel the doubts
which several distinguished commentators of Dante have expressed in modem
times respecting the " quattro stelle." To take this problem in all it^ com-
pleteness, we must compare the passage, " lo mi volsi," &c. (Purgat. I. v.
22—24) with other passages :—i»urg. I. v. 37; VIII. v. 85—93; XXIX.
V. 121 : XXX. V. 97; XXXT. v. 106; and Inf. XXVI. v. 117 and 127.
The Milanese astronomer, De Cesaris, considers the three *' fecelle" (" Di
che '1 polo di qua tutto quanto arde," and which set when the four stars of
the Cross rise,) to be Canopus, Achernar and Fomalhaut. I have attempted
to solve the difficulties by the following considerations : — " Le mysticisme
philosophique et reUgieux qui p^netre et viviiie Timmeuse composition du
Dante, assigne ^ tous les objets, h cote de leur existence reelle ou materielle,
une existence ideale. C'est comme deux moudes, dont I'un est le reflet de
Tautre. Le gronpe des quatres ^toiles represente, dans Tordre moral, les
vertus cardinaleSf la prudence, la justice, la force et la temperance ; die*

XCVl NOTES.

. m^ritent pour cdale nom de ' Buintes lumiires, luei sanU,' Le» trois ^faifla
' qui ^dairent le pole' lepmentent lea vertus tkSologeUet^ la foi, Vespeiace
ct la charite. Les premiers de ces ^tres nous revelent eux-memes leor doolik
. nature; ils cbantent: 'Id nous sommes des njmpiLfs, daas le ddiua
fommea des etoiles; ^oi sem jt<» Nittfe, e nel del 9emo HelU* Dansli
Terre de la veritS, le Paradis terrestre, sept UTinplies ae trouvent remiies: h
eerehxo lefacevan di ie dauttro I0 tette Ninfe, C'est la reunion dcs Totv
cardinales et th^ogales. Sous oes formes mystiques, les objets reels di
firmameut, floignees les uns des autres, d'apres les lois Hemelles de la
Mecanique celeste, se recounaisseat ^ peine. Le monde ideal est imeii1>R
creation de Tame, le produit de Tiuspiration poetique." (Examen crit. T. ir.
p. 324—832.)

(^ p. 292.~Aco8ta, lib. i, cap. 5. Compare mj Relation biston[i^
T. i. p. 209. As the stars a and y of the Southern. Cross have almost tte
same right ascension, the Cross appears perpendicular when passing themes-
dian; but the natives too often forget that this cdestial timepiece maibtiie
hour each day 3' 56" earlier. I am indebted for all the calculations lespeet^
iog the visibility of southern stars in the northern latitudes to the kind cm-
mnnications of Dr. Galle, by whom the planet of Le Verrier was first di^
vered in the heavens. "The uncertainty of the calculation according to
which the star a of the Southern Cross, taking re&action into account, vosU
have begun to be invisible in 62° 25' N. lat. in the year 2900 before tks
Christian era, may possibly amount to more than 100 years, and according^
the strictest formula of calculation could not altogether be removed, as tk
proper motion of the fixed stars cannot well be assumed to be uniform far ^
long intervals. The proper motion of a Crucis is about } of a second issa-
ally, chiefly in right ascension. The uncertainty produced by n^lecting t^
*aay be presumed not to exceed the above-mentioned limit.

O p. 294.— Barros da Asia, Dec. I. liv. IV. cap. 2 (1778), p. 282.

(*^ p. 294. — Navarrcte, Colecdon de los Viages y Descubrimientos p»
hicieron por mar los Espafloles, T. iv. p. xxxii. (in the Notida biografica k
Fernando de Magallanes).

(*») p. 295.— Barros, Decad. HI. Parte ii p. 650 and 658—662.

(^*) p. 296. — ^The queen writes to Columbus: "Nosotros mismos yw
otro alguno, habemos visto algo del libro que nos dejastes (a journal of 1^
voyage in which the distrustful navigator had omitted all numerical datao^
degrees of latitude and of distances) : quanto mas en esto platicamos y venw^
conocemos cuangran cosa ha seido este negocio tro y que habets s do

en eUo mas que nunca se penso que pudien saber ninguno de loi laiskM-

KOTBS. XCVU

"if 08 pareoe que Mm bien que Ikrasedes con tos un bnen Estndogo, y not
porescia qae seria boeno para esto Fray Antonio le Marchena porque 68 buen
Jistrologo y siempre nos parecid que se conformaba eon vnestro parecer.''
Refpecting tbis Marcbena, wbo is identical witb Fray Jnan Perez, tbe 6iiar*
dian of tbe Convent de la Rabida wbere Oolnmbns in bis poverty in 1484
" asked tbe monks for bread and water for bis cbild," see Navarrete, T. ii.
p. 110 ; T. iii. p. 597 and 603 (Mufioz, Hist, del Naevo Mnndo, lib. iv.
1 24). — Colombus, in a letter to tbe Gbristianissimos Monarcas from Jamaica,
July 7, 1503, caUs tbe astronomical Epbemendes "una vision profetica*?
(Navarrete, T. i. p. 306). Tbe Portuguese astronomer Buy Falero, a native
of CubiUa, named by Cbarles Y. 1519, CabaUero de la Orden de Santiago,
at tbe same time as Magellan, performed an important part in tbe prepara-
tions for Magellan's voyage of circumnavigation. He bad prepared expresdy
for bim a treatise on determinations of longitude, of wbicb tbe great bistorian
Barros possessed some cbapters in manuscript (Ezamen crit. T. i. p. 276 and
802 ; T. iv. p. 315) : pi-obably tbe same wbicb in 1635 were printed at
Seville by Jobn Exomberger. Navarrete (Obra postuma sobre la Hist, de la
Nautica y de las ciencias matematiois, 1846, p. 147) could not find tbe book
even in Spain. Respecting tbe four metbods of finding tbe longitude wbicb
Falero bad received from tbe suggestions of bis "Demonio fiimiliar," see
Herrera, Dec. II. lib. ii. cap. 19; and Navarrete, T. v. p. Invii. Subse-
quently tbe cosmograpber Alonso de Santa Cruz, tbe same wbo (like tbe
apothecary of Seville, Felipe Guillen, 1526) attempted to determine tbe longi-
tude by means of tbe variation of tbe compass-needle, made impracticable
proposals for accomplishing tbe same object by tbe conveyance of time ; but
bis chronometers were sand-and-water timepieces, whedworks moved by
weights, and even " wicks saturated with oil," which burnt out in very equal
intervals of timel Pigafetta (Transunto del Trattato di Navigazioue, p. 219)
recommends altitudes of the moon on the meridian. Amerigo Vespucci
speaking of tbe method of determining longitude by lunars, says i^ith great
naivete and truth, that its advantages arise from the ^'corso piu leggier de la
Inna" (Canovai, Viaggi, p. 57).

(^) p. 298. — ^The American race, which is the same from 65^ N. lat. to
55*^ S. lat., did not pass from the life of hunters to that of cultivators of the
soil through the intermediate gradation of a pastoral life. This circumstance
is the more remarkable, because the bison, enormous herds of which roam
over the country, is susceptible of domestication, and yields much milk. Little
attention has been paid to an account given in Gomara (Hist. gen. de 1m
VOL. II. 2 H

IndiM, «p.214), of «tribeliTii^(mt]Ml6llieantei7totiieiiafi^*«iit<

MadM in abont 4(f N. lat, whote gnitett ridiet eonskted in lierds of tamel

Uaona (biMjes eon un giba). l^m tliew imimnlii tlie natrres derived ]nit»>

mU for dothing, food, and drink, proboUy the blood, (Presoott, Conqoe^ d

Mezioo, Vol. iii. p. 416) ; for the didike to miUc, or at least its non nse^ i^

pesn, before the amval of Bvn^ieani, to hare been coimnon to all the nitivtt

of the New Continent, as weU as to the inhabitants of ChiiM and Codii-

ehipa. Itistrnethattherewerefrointheearliest times IB the moontsoMa

parts of Quito, Pern, and Chili, herds of domestieated laona ; hot these hoii

wepre in the poaseasion of nations idio led a settled lilb, and were engaged b

the cultivation of the soil; in the Cordilleras of Sonth America there woe

no '* pastorsl nations," and no sach thing as a " pastoral Ufe.*' WhsijR

the " tame deer," near the Ponta de St. Helena, which I find spoken of ii

Henera (Dee. XL lib. z. eap. 6, T. i p. 471, ed. Amberes, 17i^) ? 'Rne

deer are said to have yielded nilk and cheese s '* Oiervos qiie dan lede J

fuesoy secrianencasar* Eram what source is this notice derived? B

■ay have arisen fiom a oonftMion with the hmas (which linve neither bom

■or antlers) of the eodl monntainoDs re|pon,-~of which Garcilaso affins

that in Fern, and espedslly on the plateau of Collao, they vfeve used fir

ploughing (Comment. ieales» P. I. lib. v. cap. 2, p. 183). (Compare ako ^

Pedro de Cie9a de Leon, G^ironica del Peru, SeviUa, 155S, cap. 110, p. 264J

The employment of lamas for the plough would however appear to have tea

a rare exception, and a merely local custom. In general the vrant <A domestie

animals was a characteristic of the American race, and had a profoond infli'

enoe on &mily lift.

C*^ P* 298.— On the hopes which in the execution of his great and ffft-
minded work, lather placed especially (m the younger generation, the yooA
•f Germany, see the remarkable expressions in a letter of June 1518 (Nen^
der de Yicelio, p. 7).

(^0 p. 299.— I have shewn dsewhere how a knowledge of the period il
whidi Vespucci was named Piloto mayor would alone be sufficient to refofe
the accusation, first brought against him in 1 533 by the astronomer Schootf
of Nuremberg, of having astutely inserted the words " Terra di Amerigo" ii
eharts which he altered. The high esteem and reject which the Spaiu!l
court paid to the hydrographicsl and astronomical knowledge of Amengv
Tespucd, are clearly manifested in the instructions (Real titulo con eiteoaa
freultades) which were given to him when, on the 22d oi Msrch, 1508, te
ma appointed Piloto mayor (Navairete, T. iiL p. 297-^02). He wasfM

Noi'ES. xcix

at tie bead of a true Deposito hydrograiioo, and was to prepare for the Casa
de CoxLtratacion in Seville, (the central point of all Oceanic discoveries,) a
geneoral description of coasts and register of positions, in which all new disco-
veries were to be entered every year* But the name of " Americi terra*' had
been ^posed for the New Continent as early as 1507, by a person whose
existence even was assoredly nnknown to Yespncci, the geographer Waldsee-
maller (MartinHS Hylacomylns) of Ereiburg in the Breisgau, the director ot
m printing establishment at St. -Die in Lorraine, in a small work entitled,
Goamographiss Introdactio, insnper quatnor Americi Yespndi Navigatioaes
(impr. in oppido S. Deodati, 1507). Ringmann, professor of cosmography at
Basle, (better known under the name of Fhilesins,) Hylacomylns and Grego-
ring Beiscb^ who published the Margarita Philosophica, were firm friends.
In the last-named work there is a treatise by Hylacomylns on architecture
ftnd perspective written in 1509 (Examen crit. T. iv. p. 112). Laurentius
Pbrisius of Metz, a Mend of Hylacomylns, and like him patronised by the Duke
Benatns of- Lorraine who corresponded by letter vrith Yespncci, speaks in the
Strasbnrg edition of Ptolemy, 1622^ of Hylacomylns as deceased. The map of
the New Continent drawn by Hylacomylns and oontuned in this edition pre-
sents the first instance of the name of America *'in the editions of Ptolemy's
6eography:" but in the meanwhile, according to my investigations, there had
ippeared two years earlier a Map of the World by Petrus Apianus, which was
inserted in Camer's edition of SoUnus, and a second time in the Yadian edition
«f Mela, and which, like more modem Chinese maps, represents the Isthmus
of Panama broken through (Examen crit. T. iv. p. 99 — 124 ; T. v. p. 168 — >
176). It is a great error to regard the map of 1627 now in Weimar, ob-
Udned from the Ebner Hhrary at Nuremberg, and the map of 1529 of Diego
Bibero, engraved by Giissefeld, as the oldest maps of the New Continent (Exa-
men crit.' T. ii. p. 184 ; T. iii. p. 191). Yespncci had visited the coasts of
South America in 1499 (a year after Columbus's third voyage) in the expe-
£tion of Alonso de Hojeda, in company with Juan de .la Cosa, whose map,,
drawn at the Puerto de Santa Maria in 1500 fully six years before Colum-
bus's death, was first brought to light by myself. Yespncci could not even
liave bad any motive for feigning a voyage in 1497* for he, as well as Colum-
hvLS, was firmly persuaded until his death, that his discoveries were a part of
Siastem Asia. (Compare the better of Columbus, Eebmary 1502, to Pope
Alexander YT., and another, July 1 503, to Queen Isabella, Navarrete, T. i.
to. 804, T. ii. p. 280, and Yespucci's letter to Pier Francesco de' Medici in
^ndini's Yita e Lettere di Ameriso Yespucd, p. 66 and 83.) Pedro de Le»

e VOTES.

desmA, Colombua'i pilot in liif third TOjr«^ •till saj* in 1518, k tltli^
•uit against the hein, that Paria ia oonaiderad a part ot Aom, "Jatietn
flrme que dioeae que ea da Asia:" NavirreU^ T. UL p. 539. The freqaat
ine of aach periphrasea aa Moodo naoTo, alter OrhU, Colonos mm OriH
repcrtor, do not contradict this, aa thej onlj denote regioiia not before tea,
and are used jnst in the same manner bj Stnbo, Blela» Tertullian, Isidore of
Seville, and Cadamoeto (Ezamen crit T. i. p. 118; T. v. p. 182-184).
For more than 20 years after the death of Veapucei, which took place in 151^^
and indeed until the calumnious statemcnta of Schoner in the OposcnloB
Geographicum, 1533, and of Senret in the Lyons edition of Ptolemy's Gfio*
graphy in 1535, we find no trace of any accoaation against the PlorentiBB
navigator. Columbus himself a year before his death speaks of Vespoedii
terms of unqualified esteem; he calls him ** macho hombre de bien,V
" worthy of all confidence," and " always inclined to render me aanc^
(Carta a mi muy caro Qo D. Diego, in Navarrete, T. i. p. 851). The mm
goodwill towards Vespucci is displayed by Fernando Colon, who wrote the Jife
of his fi&ther in 1535 in Seville four years before his death, and who wiik
Juan Vespucci, a nephew of Amerigo's, was present at the astronomical Jbb^
of Badajoz, and at the proceedings respecting the possession of the Molucca;
— by Fetrus Martyr de Anghiera, the personal friend of the Admiral, ad
whose correspondence goes down to 1525 ; — by Oviedo, who sejcks for evoy
thing which can lessen the fiime of Columbus ; — ^by Ramosio ; — and by the
great historian GuicdardinL If Amerigo had intentionally falsified the data
of his voyages, he would have brought them into agreement with each othe^
and not have made the first voyage terminate five months after the oommeDce*
ment of the second. The confusion of dates in the numerous versions of his
voyages, is not to be attributed to him, as he did not himself publish any d
these accounts ; such mistakes and confusion of figures are moreover of veiy
frequent occurrence in writings printed in the 16th century. Oviedo hid
been present, as one of the queen's pages, at the audience at which Ferdinand
and Isabella received Columbus with much pomp on his return from his fii^
voyage of discovery. Oviedo priuted three times that this audience took
place in the year 1496, and even that America was discovered in 1491*
Gomara had the same printed not in figures but in words, and placed the dis-
covery of the Terra firma of America in 1497, precisely therefore in the yetf
ao critical to Amerigo Vespucci's reputation (Examen crit. T. v. p. 196 — 208.
The entire guiltlessness of the Florentine navigator, who never attempted t^
attach his name to the New Continent, but who had the miafortune by his nut-

r

luloquence in ihe accoimts addressed to the Gonfalionere Piero Soclerini, to Viee
TVancesco de' Mediei, and to Duke Reuatns II. of Lorraine, to draw upon
himself the attention Of {Kisteiijy more than he deserved, is most decisively
shewn by the hiwauit which the fiscal authorities conducted from 1508 to
1527 against the heirs of Columbus, for the purpose of withdrawing' from
them the rights 'and privileges which had been ceded by the crown to the
Admiral in 1492. Amerigo entered the service of the state as Piloto mayor
-in the same year that the lawsuit was commenced. He lived at Seville during
four years of its proceedings, in Which it was to be decided what parts of the
Kew Continent were first seen by Columbus. The most miserable reports
found a hearing, and were made matter of accusation by the fiscal ; witnesses
were sought for at St. Domingo and all the Spanish ports, at Moguer, Paloa
fend Seville, and ail this 'under th6 eyes of Amerigo Vespucci and his nephew
Juan. Tbe Mundus Novus, printed by Johann Otmer at Augsburg, 1504,-^
the RaccoltafI Yicenza (Hondo novo e paesi novamente retro vati da Alberico
Yespuzio Fiorentino, of Alessandro Zorzi, 1607,) usually attributed to Era-
canzio di Montalboddo, — and the Quatuor Navigationes of Martin Waldsee*
'jntiller (Hylacomylus) had ahready appeared ; since 1520 maps were extani
'having in them the name of America, which had been proposed by Hylacomylus
in 1507, and praised by Joachim Yadius in a letter addressed to Rudolphus^
Agricola from Vienna in 1612 ; and yet the person to whom extensively cir-
culated writings in Germany, France, and Italy, attributed the discovery in
1497 of the Terra firma of Paria, was neither cited by the fiscal as a witness
In the proceedings which had begun in 1508, and were continued for 19 years,
nor was he even spoken of as opposed to Columbus, or as having preceded
liim. Why, after the death of Amerigo Vespucci (22d Feb. 1512 in Seville)
was not his nephew Juan Vespucci called upon to give evidence, (as were Mar*
4xD. Alonso and Vicente Yafiez Finzon, Juan de la Cosa and Alonso de Hojeda^)
fhat he might testify that the coast of Paria, to which great value was at-
tached not as " part of the main land of Asia," but on account of the produc-
tive peari fishery in its vicinity, had been already landed on before Columbus^
before August (1498) by Amerigo ? The disregard of this most important tes-
timony would be inexplicable if Amerigo Vespncd had ever boasted of having
made a voyage of discovery in 1497, or if any serious value had at that time
been attached to the confused dateis and misprints of the " Uuatuor Naviga-
tiones." The different parts of the great and still unprinted work of a friencl
of Columbus, Fra Bartholom^ de his Casas (the Historia general de las In-
4ias), were as we know with certiEdnl^ written at very difl!!Brent periods. It

••

eU KOIBS.

« •

WM not oommaifled until 1627» 15 yean after tlie dsatlL of knum^ nl
was completed in 1659, 7 yean before tlie death of the agped antlicir in hit 9ii

year. Praise and bitter oenaore are mingled iu it in wieitraiordiiiaiXBMBaiX
We see that dialike and sospieion angmented prognasiiraly as the froe «f tkr
FLoientine navigator spread. In the prafiMe (Prolego) whUi ms wiittK
first, Las Cases says^ " Amerigo relates what he did in tw9 ToiyHpes to w

Indies, bat he appears to me to have passed over many cirenmfltanoea in skofl^
whether advisedly (a saviendas) or becanse he did not attend te tben; tini
has led some to attribute to him that whidi is dne to others, and whii^ oi^
not to be taken from them." The sentence pronoonoed in the lot book (ekqi
140) is stiU equally moderate: "Hero I must notice the iiynatiee tomril
the Admiral which appears to have been committed by Amerigo^ or pohi^ )9
those who printed Qba que imprimi^n) hia Qoatnor Navigationes. To \m
alone, without naming any other, the discovery of the oontinent ia attribntai
Cle is also said to have placed in maps the name of Anygfifa^ thereby sinfd^
fiuUng towards the Admiral. Aa Amerigo ¥raa eloquent, and an ele^
writer (era latino y eloqueate), he makes himself appear in Qie letter ts
King Benatus like the leader of Hojeda's expedition : yet he was only one U
the pilots, although experienced in seamanship and learned in oosmogzajilv
(hombre entendido en las cosas de la mar y doeto en oosmogzaphia) « • , . li
the world the belief prevails that he was the first at the main land. It la
]purposely gave currency to this belief it was great wiokednesa i and if it mi
not really intentionally done, yet it looks like it (dara pareae la fidsedad: j
m. fu^ de industria hecha, maldad grande fu^ ; y ya qoe no le faeee^ ^ meDflf

parezelo) Amerigo is represented aa having sailed in the year 7 (1497)t

which seems indeed to have been only an error of the pen and not im int»
tional false statement (pareza aver avido yeno de pendola y no malida), 1»*
qause he is made to have returned at the end of 18 montha. TbAfireigB
writers call the country America. It ought to be Colnmha." This pssssgt
shews clearly that up to that time Las Casas had notx accosed Amer^
having himself brought the name America into usage. He aaya, ''id
tomado los escriptores extrangeroa de nombrar la nuestra Tieonra firme Amene%
eomo si Americo solo y no otro con el y antes que todos U oviera desoofaia^
to." Farther on in the work, lib. i. cap, 164 — 1Q9, and lib. ii. tsB^%
violent animosity breaks out : nothing is now attributed to erroneous datd^
or to the partiality of foreigners for Amerigo ; all is intentional deoeit sf
which Amerigo himself is guilty ('* de industria lo hiaor , % . penistid en d*
eunfio • . . de &laedad est& daxamente conveneidf)")^ Bafthehnni de li>

€asa8 labour 8 tiso in two passages to shew mom particularly tliat Amerigo
in his accoants fiilsified the tme succession of the occorrences of his first two
voyages, placing in the first voyage many things which belonged to the second
and vice versft. It is strange thai the aecnser does not seem to have felt how
mach the weight of his accusations is diminished by what he himself says of the
opposite opinion, and of the indifierence of the person who would havebeenmost
interested in attacking Vespucci, if he had believed him guilty and adverse to his
fiither and himsdf. " I cannot but wonder," says Las Casas (cap. 164), " that
Hernando Colon, a dear-nghted man, who as I certainly know had in his hands
Amerigo's ac«3unts of his travels, should not have remarked in them any deceit
Or injustice towards the Admiral." Having had a few months ago a firesh
opportunity of examining the rare manuscript of Bartholom^ de las Casas, I
ftave been led to embody in this long note what I had not already employed
In 1889 in my Ezamen critique, T. v. p. 178 — SI 7. 1%e conviction whidi
i then expressed, in the same volume, p. 217 and 224, has remained mi-
shaken, ^ Quand la denomination d'un grand eontinent, gen^ralemeilt
adoptee et eonsaeree par Tusage de plusieurs si^des, se presente eomme vat
monument de Tiig^ustice des hommes, il e# natorel d'attribuer d'abord la
cause de eette bjnstice Ik oelui qui eembhiit le plus Int^retos^ k la oommettre.
ti'etude des docnmras a prouve qu'aucun fidt certain n'appuit oette suppositiott,
et que le nom dHAmSnque a pris naissance dans un pays eloign^ (en France
«t en Allemagne), par un concours d'incidens qui paraissent ecarter jusqu'iiii
80up9on d'une influence de la part de Yespuoe. Cest \k que s'arr^te la cri-
tique historique. Le champ sans homes des causes iiiconnuet ojx, des eombi-
ludsons morales possibles, n'est pas du domsine de I'faistoire positive. Xhi
'liomme qui pendant une longue oarri^ a joni de Festime des plus illustres de
iKs eontemporains, s'est eleve, par des connaissances en aatronomie nautique,
'distinguees pour le- temps od il vivait, k un emploi honoable. Le oonoou^
\de circonstances fort'uites lui a donn^ une o^ebrit^ dont le poids, pendaiit
Irois siedes, a pese sur sa memoire, enfoomissant des motifs pour avilir sob
caractto. tine telle position est him rare dans Fhistoire des infortnnes hu-
maines : c*est Texemple d'one fiiftrissnre morale croissant avec riUustration
^u nom. B valait la peine de scruter oe qui, dans ce melange desucc^ et
iTadversit^, appartient au navigateur mdme, anx hazards de la redaction pr^-
cipit^ de ses- ^rits, ou 2k de mdadroits et dangereux amis." Even CopemietB
Contributed to this dangerous celebrity ; for he also- ascribes the discovery of
Ihe new part of the globe to Vespucci. In discussing the '* centrum gravi-
Haiisf* and **centramnttignitudinis" Df-thecontiDenti 1^ ftddsi *^magia id

Of VOTES*

crit diniiii, ti iddentiir inmhB atete noatm sob Hupuiamm
Fr^opibm npsrta ti praflertim Amflrioa ab iiiTentore denomiiuta ntnos
prafeoto, qnem, ob ineompertaiii ^ns adhno magnitudmeBi, altenim oria
tarnrmn pntaat/' (NiooUi Copenici de BcvoiutioiiilNu crlniiiii caie^&n,
Uhn sex, 1548, p. 2 a.)

(^ p. 800.--Compan my ISxaiMQ «it. de I'Hiat. de la Geognpfaie, T.
iii p. 154—168, and 225—227.
O p. 802.— Ckvmpara Kosmos, Bd. L 6. 86 (Sig^ tnaa. VoL L p. 73.)
(^ p. 808.—*' The teleMopeB whick Galileo conatnictod himself, and otkn
wbich he used for obeemng Japiter*8 ntellite8» the {diaaes of yc&ns, ud tb
aolar spots, magniiied 4, 7> and 82 times in linear dimeaaiona, never moR.'
(Axago, in the Annnaiie da Burean dee Longitadea poor Tan 1842, p. 268).
(») p. 804.— Westphal, in his BiographT^ of Copernicus (1822, 8. U^
dedicated to the great astronomer of K&ugsbeig, Besael, like Gassendi, calli
the Bishop of Ermland Looas Wataelrodt Ton Allen. Aoconding to explfit'
tions Y&j recently obtained, and for whieh I am indebted to the leeroed his-
torian of PnissiB» Arehiv-Director Voigt, the hnulj of the mother of
Gopemicas is called in original docnments Weissebodt^ Weiasehot^ We8»>
hrodt, and most nsoally Waisselrode. His mother una nndoobtedlj d
German descent, and the family of Waisselrode, who were onginally distiiiflt
firam that of Ton Allen, which had flonriahed at Thorn from the beginmng d
the 15th centnry, probably took the name of von Allen in addition to thtf
-own, throQgh adoption or connection. Sniadedd and C^nski (Kopenik
et ses TraTanz, 1847, p. 26) call the mother of the great Copemicos Barku
Wassdrode, married, in 1464, at Th<ffn, to his father, whose £uni]y Htf
• bring from Bohemia. The name of the astronomer, who Grasaendi designatei
as TonuBQS Bomssos, is written by Westphal and Gsynsid, Kopeniik, and kf
Krzyzianowaki, Kopimig. In a letter of the Bishop of Ermhmd, Maitis
Cromer of Heilsbeig, dated Nor. 21, 1580, it is said, **Cam Jo. (NiooM
Copemicas TiTens omamento foerit, atqne etiam none post &ta sit, noa
solmn hnic eodesiiB, Terom etiam toti Frosaie patrise sue, iniqanm easepntob
earn post obitom carere honore s^olchri siTe monomentL'*

(^ p. 304. — ^Thus Gassendi, in Nicohd Copemici Vita, appended to hii
biography of l^cho (l^ehonis Brahel Vita, 1655, Hagn-Comitom, p. 820:
*'eodem die et hoiis non mnkis prinsqnam animam e£9aret." Itisod{f
Sehnbert, in his Astronuny, Th. i. S. 115, and Bobert Small, in the TSiy
instractiTe Account of the Astronomical DisooTeries of KepUr, 1804, p. 99^
who state that Cepemiaaa died "a few days after the t^tgansuot of hjl

NOTEST. CV

work.'' This is also the opiaion of the Arduv-Direistor Yoigi at Konigsheig^;

because in a letter which Gteorge Donner, Canon of Ermland, wrote to tlii

Dbke 0£ Prussia after the death of Copemicm, it is said, that ** the estimablo

and worthy Doctor Nicolans Kopperntck sent forth his work, Hke the sweel

■ong of the swan, a short time before his departure from this life of sorrows."

According to the ordinarily received opinion (Westphal, Nikolans Kopemikns^

?.822, S. 73 and 82), the work was b^un in 1507, and in 1530 was already

■o far completed that only a few corrections were subsequently added. Thb

pablication was hastened by a letter from Cardinal Schonberg, written from

Borne in 1536. The cardinal wishes to have the mannsciipt copied and sent

to him by Theodor von Beden. Copernicus himself, in his dedication to

Pope Paul III. says, that the performance of the work has lingered on into

■the '* quartum novenninm." If we remember how much time was requireA

for printing a work of 400 pages, and that the great man died in May 1548,

-we may presume that the dedication was not written in the last naided year';

which, reckoning backwards ^6 years, would not give us a later but an earli^

year than 1507. — Herr Yoigt doubts whether the aqueduct and hydranbe

wwks at Erauenburg, generally ascribed to Copernicus, were really execntisA

according to his designs. He finds that so late as 1571, a contract waa

'oonduded between the Chapter and the "skilM Master Valentine Zendd il

Breslau," to bring the water to Erauenburg, from the mill-ponds to thtt

houses of the Canons. NotMng is said of any previous water-works, and

therefore the existing ones cannot have been commenced until 28 years aftcfer

the death of Copernicus.

(f) p. 305.— ^Behunbrei Histoire de TAstronomie modeme, T. i. p. 140.^
(^) p. 304. — " Neque enim necesse est, eas hypotheses esse veras, imo ne
verisinules quidem, sed sufficit hoc unum, si calculum observationibus con*
gruentem exhibeant," says the preface of Osiander. '* The bishop of Culm^
Tidemann Gise, a native of Bantzig, who had for years urged Copernicus to
publish his work, at last received the manuscript, with permission to have it
printed at his free pleasure. He sent it first to Bhseticus, Professor at Wit-
tenberg, who had recently been living for a long time with his teacher at
Erauenburg. Bheticna regarded Nuremberg as the most suitable place fdr
the publication, and entrusted the superintendence of the printing to the
Professor Schoner and Andreas Osiander" (Gaseendi, Vita Copemici, p. 319),
The enlogium pronounced on the work at the close of the preface wouIA
suffice to shew, without the express testimony of -Gassendi, that the prefaOe
*ai by another hand. Also on the titie of the first edition (that of Nureltt-

lierfr 1548), Odaader hat made qm of an eipnttion which is slwayB canfi^
«TDided in Coperoieoa's own writing : " motna ■t^Hiumm novia insopcr k
•ndminbilibiis hjrpothenboa omaii," together with the very vngentle additui,
*'igitnr, ^0^1086 leetoc^ eae, l^e» froan.'* In the aeoond Bak editua d
X56d, which I have verx carefiiUj compaied with the first Noremberg t^lan,
jihere is no longer mention in the title of the hook of the *' adminUe hjfh
thetiar hat Osiander's "Fia&tianealade Hypotheaibiia hiqaB Opens,"*
'Qassendi calls the interpolated prefiue^ ia preaer?ed« It ia alao evident tU
Onander, without naming himed^ meant to shew that the ^rso&tiimcah mi
hj a different hand ftom the work itself as he deaignatea the dedieatiitt ti
•Pkid UI. aa the «* Pr«£iAio ▲othoria.*' The first edition has only IM
leaTea ; the seeimd has 213, on aocount of the added Narratio Brima d ^
astronomer George Joaehim Bhieticas, and a letter directed to Sehoner, wliid^
,aa I have remarked in the text, being printed in 1541 hy the interventkn i
the ff'fftV'M*'""* Qaaeania of Basle, gave to the learned world the first o»
'leet knowledge of the Gopermesn system. Bhaetieoa had giTCa 19 his p»
ftssorship at Wittenberg for the sake of eigoying the instraetiona of Copenwaf
ftt Franenbnig itself. (Con^HU^, on these subjects, Gassendi, p. 810— 81U
The explanation of what Osiander was induced to add fix>ni timidity, is gha
hgr Gassendi: " Andreas porro Osiander fiat, qui nonmodoopenrnminspeetti
(the soperintendent of the printing) fuit, aed PrsefiAtinncaiam. qooque i2
lectorem (tacito Uoet nomine) de Hypothesibns opens adhihnit. ^osistf
-consilium fiiit, nt» tametsi Copernicus Motum Term habniaset, ncmsoima^
Hypothesi, sed pro vero etiam placito; ipse tamen ad rem, oh illo^ quihaH
offenderentur, leniendam, excuaatmn eom&ccKel; quasi talem Motum nca p
dogmata, aed pro Hypothesi mera assompsisset^**

(^) P* 807.—" QmB enim in hoc pulcberrimo templo lampadem hsae ii
^0 vel meliori loco ponei^ quam unde totum simni poasit illuminaief &
iquidem non inepte quidam Incemam mundi, alii mentem, idii xectorem vocnL
TrimegistuB visibilem Peom, SophocUs Eleotra intoentem omnia. Itap»
fecto tanquam in soUo regaii Sol residens circomagentem guhemat askranai
femiliam : Tdlus. qnoque minime firandatur lonari ministerio, aed ot Ani»
-teles de animalibua ait^ maximam Luna cum terra oognatioDfini hnbct. Gofr
4pepit interea a Sole teRa» et impregnatur annuo parto. Invsenimna ijgitursdb
Juic ordinatione adrairattdam mundi qymmetriam ao certum harmonie ncnn
jmotus et magnitadinis erhinm: qoalis alb modo reperiri non potest (NioiC
'^pem. de BeroL Orbinm Ccdestiam, lib. i. eap. lO^pwOb). In tUspw
Jig% which ia not without pootio grace and elevation of. ai/k^ we noogniA

ilOTBS, evil

m was the ease witli all the astronomers of the 17th centmy, traces of long and
iatimate acquaintance with classical antiquity. Copemicos had in his mind
CSc. Somn. Scip. c. 4 ; Flin. ii. 4 ; and Mereor. Trismeg. lib. t. (ed. Cracor.
1586), p. 196 and 201, The allusion to the Electra of Sophocles is obscure,
as this sun is not termeid any where ** all-seeing,'' as it is in the Iliad
and the Odyssey, and also in the Chcephorse of ^diylus (v. 980)^ which y6t
Copernicus would not probably have called Electra. According to Bockh^a
conjecture^ tlie allusion is to ^ ascribed to a vague remembrance of verse
869 of Sophodes' CBdipus Goloaeus. It is singular that quite latdy, in sn
otherwise instructive memoir- (CzynsH, Kopemlk et ses Travaux, 1847, ^
102), the Electra of the tragedian u confounded with " electric currents."
'The passage of Copernicus quoted above is thus translated : " Si on prend le
'loleil pour le flambeau de runivers, pour son ame, pour son guide, si Trim6«
giste le nomme un Dieu, si Soph'ocle le croit nne puissance electrique qui anima
et contemple Tensemble de la creation.". • . ,

■; (*^ p. 807.—'" Huribus ergo ezistentibns centris, de centto quoqne mnndl
lion temere quia dubitabit, an videlicet fiierit istud gravitatis terrense, an diud,
Equidem ezistimo, gravUatem noa alind esse, quam appetentiam quandaia
naturalem partibus ihditam a divina providentia opficis universorum, ut in um- '
'fatem integritatemque snam. sese con&rani in formam globi coenntes. QnaAi
affectionem credibile est etiam Soli, Lunss, cseterisque errantium fulgoribvs
Inesseyut g'us efficacia in ea qua se reprsesentant rotunditate permaneant, qosa
nihilominus multis modis suos efficiunt drcuitus. Si igitur et terra faciatalic^
^ut pote secundum centrum (mundi), necesse eiit eos esse qui similiter extrin-
'secus in multra apparent, in ^bus invenimus annuum drcuitum. — Ipse
denique Sol medium mundi putabitur possidere, quee omnia ratio ordinis, quo
'iQa sibi invicem succedunt, et mundi totius harmonia nos docet, si mode rem
r^sam ambobus (ut ig'unt) oodis inspidamiui^' (Copem. de Revol. Orb; Coel,
'fib. i. cap. 9, p. 7, b).

• ' (^ p. 308.— Hut. de Ruae in Orbe Luna, p.. 923, e (compare Idde^,
•Meteorologia Veterum Gnecorum et Romanorum, 1832, p. 6). In the pas*
sage of Plutardi, Anaxagoras is not named; but that the latter applied the
same theory of "falHng if the force ofrotation intermitted'* to all the material
'odestial bodies, we learn from Biog. Laert. ii. 12, and the many passages
'which I have collected (Cosmos, Bd. i. S. 139, 397, 401, and 408; EngL
tirans. Vol. i. p. 1 28-124, Notes 62, 69, 89). Compare also Aristot. de Ccdo^
fi. 1, p. 284, a 24, Bekker and a remarkable passage of Simplicius,p. 491, 1^
fa the SchoHa, according to the edition of the Berlin Academy, where the

CVm NOTES.

"notfUliiigofhMnnBDlTbodin" iitpbkm of ^wlien the tome of nMn
pfedomiiiatM orer Uie proper lidling foioe or downward sttroctioiL" Vi
maf connect with theie ideUk idiidi tlao pertiallj belong to Kmpedodes td
Lemoeritos u wdl tk to Anaxagont, the instanee addpoed by Simpiidoa, M
" that water in a pbial is not spOt when the phial is swimg roond wAi
movement of rotation more rapid than the downw»rd movement of tti
water^' (nft cri re xmrm rev iilarof ^opot).

O p. 808.-^Koai08, Bd. L S. 1S9 and 408; JSaofgL train, p. lUwi
note 89. (Compare Letronne^ dea Opiniona eoamogn^iqoes dea thn k
TEg^ in the Bevne dea deoz Mondea, 1884, T. i p. 621.)

(^) p. 808.— For aU that rdatea to attraction, gravitj, and the fiAtf
. bodiea, aa regarded in antiqnity, aee a collection of paasagea from the aniM
. made with great indnstiy and diacrimination, by Th. Henri Martin, Bafa
anr le Tim& de Flaton, 1841, T. ii. p. 272—280, and 841.

C"^ p. 808. — Job. Philoponna de Creatione Hnndi, lib. L cap. 12.
(^) p. 808.— He afterwarda gave up the correct opinion (KewsUr, lb-
tyra of Science, 1846, p. 211) ; bat that there dwells in the central hoij i
the planetary system, the Son, a power which governs the mo^vements of th
, planets, and that this solar force decreases either as the sqnare of thediites
or in direct ratio, waa ei^ressed by Kepler, in the Harmonioea Mnndi, ci»
pkted in 1618.

. (^ p. 308.— Koemoa, Bd. L S. 80 and 58 (EngL trana. YoL i p.8
and 52.)

(^ p. 309.—Koamos, Bd. ii. 8. 139 and 209 (Eng. trans. YoLiLp-ltt
. sod 175). The scattered passages in the work of Copernicus, rekting to ih
Ante-Hipparehian system of the stnictore of the nniveraei, exdosive of th
dedication, are the following : — ^lib. i. cap. 5 and 10 ; lib. y. cap. 1 and 8 (bL
princ. 1543, p. 8, b; 7, b; 8, b; 133, b; 141 and 141, b; 179 sad 181.
b). Eveiy where Copemicns shews a predilection for, and a very accurate a^
qoaintance with, the views entertained by the Pythagoreans, or whidi, h
.apeak more dieomspectly, were sttribnted to the most ancioit amoi^ ikft
For example, as we see by the beginning of the dedication, he was aoqnaii^
with the letter of Lysis to Hipparehos; which, indeed, ahews that t]ie]nj»
,tery loving Italic school only designed to commnnicste their opiniooitD
friends, "as had at first been the purpose of Copernicus likewiae." Hie
period to which Lysis belonged is somewhat uncertain; he is sometiiBB
termed an immediate diadple of Pythagoras himself somyetimes, and wi&
more probability, a teacher of Bpaminondas (Bockh, Philoboa, S. 8—1^

NOTES. dX

letter of Lysis to Hipparchus (an old PytiuigoreaD» who had disclosed

the mysteries of the sect), is, like so many other writings, a forgery of later

! times. Copemlcns had probably become acquainted with it from the collee*

tion of Aldus Manntins, Epistolie diversomm Philosophoram (Romse, 1494),

or ■ from a Latin translation by Cardinal Bessarion (Venet. 1516). In the

i ' •

, prohibition of Gopemicos' work, De Berolutionibns, in the famons decree of

the Congregazione dell' Indice of the 5th of March, 1616, the new system of

the miiverse is expressly designated as "fiedsa ilia doctrina Fythagorica, Di«

Tinas ScriptorsB omnino adversans." The important passage on Aristarchus

of Samos, of which I have spoken in the text, is in the Arenarius, p. 449 of

the Paris edition of Archimedes of 1615 by David Rivaltns. But the editio

prinoeps is the. Basle edition of 1544, apnd Jo. Henragimn. The passage in

the Arenarius saya verj distinctly, that " Aristarchns had confuted the Astro*

nomers who imagined the earth to be immoveable in the centre of the uni*

^erse ; that this centre was occupied by the son, which was immoveable, like

other stars, while the eaith revolved round it." Copernicus, in his work»

twice names Aristarchns, p. 69 b and 79, but without any allusion to hit

system. Ideler, in Wolf and Buttmann's Museum der Alterthums-Wissen-

schaft (Bd. ii. 1808, S. 452), asks whether Copernicus was acquainted with

-Nicolaus von Cusa's work, De Docta Ignorantia. The first Paris edition of it

was indeed published in 1514, and the expression, "jam nobis manifestmn

est terram in veritate moveri," from a platonising cardinal, might have been

expected to make some impression on the Canon of Frauenburg (Whewell,

Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Vol. ii. p. 848) ; but a fragment of

Cnsa's writing discovered very recently (1843) in the library of the Hospital

at Cues, sufficiently proves, as does the work De Yenatione Sapientise,

r

cap. 28, that Cusa imagined the earth not to move round the sun, but to
move together with it, though more slowly, " round the constantly changiug
pole of the imiverse" (Clemens, in Giordano Bruno, and Nicol. von Cusa,
1847, S. 97—100).

(^^) p. 809. — See the profound treatment of this subject in Martin, Etudes
tur Timee, T. ii. p. Ill (Cosmographie des Egyptiens), and p. 129—133
(AntecMents dn Syst^me de Copemic). The statement of this learned phi-
lologist, according to which the original system of Pythagoras himself
differed from that of Philolaos, and placed the earth at rest in the centre,
does not appear to me quite convincing (£. ii. p. 103 and 107). Respecting
tht remarkable statement of Gassendi mentioned in the text, of the simi-
larity of the systems of l^eho Brahe and ApoUonius of Perga, I here add

ex wns*

fartlier exphnaiioii. la Gaimidi's biogrtpJiiai» hb my*, *' HagnamimpiiMl

r^tionem habait Copenucni dnanim oimjuouiuii «<B«iww^ qnaium unam lf»

iiano, CapeUa, altenm A^oUonio PergSM attribnit. — Apollomns Solem dd^

circa qaem, ut oeatram, non modo Menmriaa efe Yotiub wonaa etiam Miq

Japiter, Satarnmi raaa obiient periodoi^ dam Sol interim, iiti et Lbdi, am

Terram, at circa oeatnun^qood font afliianiw mmidiqve oentnun, mofoenl^

qaiB deinoeps qao^a opimo l^ehoait propenaodmn fdit. HsfcioiieDi oztci

Tn^gnMTf* harom opinioaam Copevoieufl habait^ qaod utra^pie exiaiie Meroni

ac Yeaeris circoitiones reprsMeataret^ exunieqae <<*p— fi reisogradatioiii^

directionom, statioaom in iis appanntiaia eqprimefei et posterior (Fo^

qooqoe ia tribos pUnetii ii^erioribas prsBstarat" <Gameiidf» l^choau BnU

yita» p. 296). My fiieod the astronoiiier Qalle^ from whom I aooght irfr

mation, like myself finds aothing wbicb ooold jastify Geasendi's ieM

statement. He writes to me> " In the passagea whidi yoa lofer to a

iptolemy's Almagest (a. the commeaeement of Book XII.), and in the mfb

of Copemicos (lib. v. c^. 8, p. 141, a; cap. 85, p. 179, a and b; eqi.M.

p. 181, b), there is only question of explaining the retrogressicMis spditt

tionary appearances of theplaneto, ia which there is indeed a refereDoeii

ApoUonius's assomption of the leTolntion of the planets round the son H

Ck>pemicos himself mentions expressly the aasuraption of the earth's staadny

^fcill) ; bat it does not appear possible to determine where Jie obtained wU

he supposes to hare been derived from Apollonios. 1 can only theRftff

conjecture, that soma late writer gave a system attributed to ApolIi»iiB d

Perga which resembled that of l^cho; although I do not find, ercsii

Copernicus, any dear exposition of such a ^stem, or any quotations of saad

passages respecting it. If the sonroe fi^om whence the complete lydaor

view is attribated to ApoUonias should be merdy lib. XII. of the Ahotgo^

we may consider that Gassendi went too &r in his suppositions, and that th

case resembled that of the phases of Mercury and Yenus, whidi Coperniev

spoke of indeed (lib. L cap. 10, p. 7, b, and 8, a), but without deadfldlf

applying them to his system. Apolloniqs^ perhaps, in a aimflar manner nsj

have treated mathematically the explanation of th0 retrogressions of tk

planets under the assumption of a revolution round the sun, without snljoii-

ing any thing decided and general as to the tnik of this assumption. Xb>

difference of the Apollonian system described by Gassendi firom thst of Tfcie

would only be, that the latter explained the inequalities of the movemesti

aa well. The remark of Robert Small, that the fundamental idea of tki

^^chonian system was by no means a stranicer to the. mind of GopemKa^

liat had rather served him us a point of tnuuition to his own syslem, appears
to Bie well foonded."

(«7») p. 310.— Schubert, Aftronomie,.Th. i. S. 124. "Whewell hie given,
in the Philosophy^ of the Indnetive Sciences, Vol. ii. p. 282, an Inductive
'iable of Astronomy, which presents an exceedingly good and eomplete tabular'
View of the aatronomical oontempktion of the stracture of tiie universe^
from the earliest times to Newton's system of gravitation.

(^^ p. 311.— -Plato indiues, in the Pheedrus, to the system of Fhilolant;
but in the Timseus, to that which represents the earth as immoveable in thr
oentre, subsequently called the Hipparehlan or the Ptolemaic system (Bockh,
de Flatonico Systemate Ccelestium Oloborom, et de vera indole Astronomie
Philolaicn, p. zzvi — zzzii. ; also the same aather in the Kiilolaos, S. 104— •
108. Compare also Fries, Geschichte der Philosophic, Bd. i. S. 825—347, with
Hartin's Etudes snr Timee, T. ii. p. 64 — 62). The astronomical vision in
Which the structure of the universe is veiled, at the end of the Book of tiie
Republic, reminds one at once of the planetary systems of intercalated spheres,
and of the concord of tones (the music of the spheres) — "the voices of ther
Sirens winging their flight with the revolving orbs." <See, on the discovery of
the true system of the universe, the fine and comprehensive Work of Apdt^
Spochen der Gesoh. der Menscheit, Bd. i. 1845, S. 205—805 and 379-^'
445.)

(^ p. 811. — Kepler, Harmonices Mun^ Bbri quinque, 1619, p. 189.
'?0n the 8th of March, 1618, Kepler, after many untoccessful* attempts,
Qome upon the thought of comparing the squares of the times of revolution
of the planets with the cubes of the mean distances ; but he made an error of
calculation, and rejected the idea. On the 15th of May, 1618, he came back'
upon it, and ealcolated correctly. The third Keplerian law was now disco-
vered." This discovery, and those related to it, coincide with the distressing
period when this great man, exposed from early childhood to the hardest
strokes of fate, was labouring, in a trial for witchcraft which lasted six years,"
to 'save his aged mother, 70 years dd, accused of poison-mixing, incapacity of
shedding tears, and sorcery, from the torture and the stake. The suspicion'
was strengthened by her own son, the wicked Christopher Kepler ^ worker
in tin, being his mother's accuser ; and by her havmg been brought up by an
amit who was burnt at Weil as a witch. See an exceedingly interesting
work, but little known in foreign ^untries, drawn fnim newly discovered
Bianuscripts by Baron von Brdtschwert, entitled, ** ^oEa&n Ktppler's Leben^
md Wiiken," 1831, S. 12, 97—147, and 196. Aceording to this woik;,'

eiii m, voxn.

Xepl«r» who in G«niuui letters alwiyt ngned his name Keppler, waa sot ban
on the 2ltt of December, J 671, in the imperial town Wetl, as is nsuaHy sup-
poeed, hot on the 87th of December, 1571, in the Wartemb«i!g Tillage d
ItUgstatt. Of Copernicoi it it nneertain whether he wae bom on the 19tk
of Janoeiy, 1472, or on the 19th EBbnuiy, 1478 (as Moetlin snpposes), tf
(aooording to O^fuki) on the 12th Febnuuy of the name jear. The year <f
Columbua'a birth w«e kmg nneartatn within 19 Tears. T^Mnndn jjaxsitii
1430, Bemaldes, the friend of the diaoovercr, in 1486^ and the cekbratsi
hialorinn MuAoi in 1446.

(<^ p. 812.~Plnt. de Fine. Phihie. iL 14; Anstot. Meteon^ xL 8, Db
GcbIo, iL 8. On theories of the spheres genenllj, and on the rctngndinK
■pheres of Aristotle in partieolar, see Ideler's Yorleeung uber EadoxoB^ 18%
S. 49-^.

(^ p. SIS.— A bettor insight into the free movement of bodies, sod iat»
the independence of the direction of the aiis of the earth onoe given, and ^
the rotatory and progresaiTe movement of the terreatrial globe in its oEfait,lw
freed the ori^nal system of Copemicos from the aasomption of a decKnatiaa-
morement) or a so-called third movement of the earth (De Bevolnt. Orb. Od.
lib. L cap. 11, triplex motos teUniis). In the annual revolntioa romui Ik
snn, the parallelism of the earth's axis ia maintained in oonformitf with tb
law of inertia, without the application of a *' correcting" epicyde.

(*) p. 814. — ^Delambrc^ Hist, de rAstronomie andenne, T. iL p. 381

(^) p. 314.— See Sir David Brewster's judgment on Kepler's optiol
works, in the " Martyrs of Sdenc^" 1846, p. 179—182. (Compare ^%
Gesch. der Optik, 1888, Th. L S. 182—210.) If the kw of the lefraetiii
of rays of light bebngs to the Lejden Professor Willebrord Snellius (16^
who at his decease left it behind him buried in his papers, on the other hui
the publication of the law in a tzigonometricsl form was first made by Dei-
cartes. See Brewster, in the North British fieview, YoL viL p. 207 ; '^^
Gesch. der Optik, Th. L S. 227.'

(^ p. 814. — Compare two excellent memoirs on tike discovery of tb
telescope, by Profiessor Moll of Utrecht, in the Journal of the Royal InstitB'
tion, 1831, YoL L p. 819; and by Wilde at Berlin, in his Gesch. der Optik.
1838, Th. L 8. 188—172. The ^ork of Moll, written in the Dutch lan-
guage, is entitled, " Geschiedkundig Onderzoek naar de eerste TJitfinders dff
Yernkykers, uit de Aantekenningen van wyle den HoogL van Swinden samca*
gesteld door G. MoU," Amsterdam, 1831. Olbers has given an extract fron
this interesting treatise in Schumacher's Jahrbnch fiir 1843, S. 56—65. Tke

NOTES. ^ CXlll

optical instruments whicli Prince Manrice of Nassau and. the Archduke Albert
had from Jansen (the Archduke gave his to Cornelius Drebbel), were, (as is evi-
, dent from the letter of the ambassador Bored, who had been often in Jansen's
house when a child, and at a later period saw the instruments in the shop,)
microscopes 18 inches long, " through which small objects, when one looked
. down at them from abore, appeared wonderfully magnified." — The confusion
between the microscope and the telescope has contributed to obscure the his-
tory of the invention of both instruments. The. letter of Boreel (Paris,
1655), above alluded to, notwithstanding the authority of Tiraboschi, renders
it improbable, that the first invention of the compound microscope belonged to
Galileo. Compare, on this obscure history of optical inventions, Vincenzio
Antinori, in the Saggi di Natnrali Esperienze fatte nell' Accademia del Cimento,
1841, p. 22 — 26. Even Huygens, who was bom scarcely twenty-five
years after the supposed date of the invention of tlie telescope, did not
ventiire to decide with certainty respecting the name of the first inventor
' (Opera reliqua, 1728, Vol. ii p. 125). According to the researches which
Van Swinden and Moll have made in Archives, not only was Lippei'shey, as
early as the 2d of October, 1608, in possession of a telescope made by him-
gelf, but the French Ambassador at the Hague, President Jeannin, wrote, on
the 28th of December of the same year, to Sully, "that he was in treaty
with the Middleburg spectacle-maker for a telescope which he wished to send
to the king*' (Henry IV.) Simon Marius (Mayer of Gunzenhausen, one of
the two independent discoverers of Jupiter's satellites) even relates that his
friend Fuchs of Bimbach, Privy Councillor of the Margrave of AnsbsRsh, was
offered a telescope for sale in the autumn of 1608 at Frankfort-on-Maine,
by a Belgian. Telescopes were made in London in February 1610, or a year
ti&er Galileo had completed his telescope (Rigaud on Harriot's Papers, 1833,
p. 23, 26, and 46). They were. at first called cylinders. Porta, the inventor
of the camera obscura, as well as, at earlier periods, Fracastoro the cotempo-
rary of Columbus, Copernicus, and Cardanns, had merely spoken of the pos-
.sibility " of seeing eveiy thing larger and nearer" by looking through convex
and concave glasses placed on each other (duo specilla ocularia alterum alteri
snperposita) ; but we cannot ascribe to them the invention of the telescope
(Tiraboschi, Storia della Letter, ital. T. xi. p. 467 ; Wilde, Gesch. der Optik,
Th. i. S. 121). Spectacles had been known in Haarlem since the beginning
of the 14th century ; and an epitaph in the church of Maria Maggiore at
Florence names as the inventor (inventore degH occhiali) Salvino degli Armati,
deceased in 1317. Separate and apparently authentic notices of the use of
VOL. II. 2 I

CXiV NOTES.

tpaeiadet by aged penons ooear eren as early as 1209 and 1305. Thefi
tagei of Roger Bacon relate to the magnifying power of spherical aegmci
•f glaas. See Wilde, GeMh. der Optik, Th. L S. 98 — ^06; and abore, Nd
284.

(^ p. 815. — In like manner, tlie above named phjaician and *«^tliwM<i
eian of the Margrafate of Anabach, Simon Marina, as earlj as 1608, db
receiving a description of the action of a Batch telescope, is believed Id ka
constmcted one himself. On Galileo's earliest observation of the moo-
tains in the moon, referred to in the text, compare Nelli, Vita di Galilei, Vat
i. p. 200—206 ; Galilei, Opero, 1744, T. ii. p. 60, 403, and (Letten ai M
Cristoforo Grienberger, in Materia delle Montnositll della Luna) p. 409—4^
Galileo fonnd in the moon some circolar districts, surrounded on evajak
by mountains, like the form of Bohemia. " Eundem facit aspectnm ioi
locos quidam, ac fiiceret in terris regio consimilis Boemiae, si mostitas
altissimis, inqne peripheriam perfect! circoli dispositis oocluderetur nndigoT
(T. ii p. 8). The measurements of the altitudes of the mountains were wA !
by the method of the tangent of the solar ray. Galileo, as HelvetiBs ^
later, measured the distance of the summit of the mountains from the bonndDT
of the illuminated portion, at the moment when the mountain smnmit ft<
caught the solar ray. I find no observation of the lengths of the shadows rf
the mountains. He found the summits " indrca miglia quattro" in ha^
and "much higher than our terrestrial mountains." The comparisaBV
• cnrions, because, according to Biccioli, very exaggerated ideas of the h^
of our mountains then prevailed ; and one of the principal or most cdMii^
amongst them, the Peak of Teneriffe, was first measured with some degree if
exactness, trigonometrically, by Feuillee, in 1724. Galileo, like all o^
observers up to the end of the 18th century, believed in the existence of na/
seas in the moon, and of a lunar atmosphere.

(**) p. 316. — ^I again find occasion (Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 434 ; Engi tnm.
Vol. i. note 159) to recal here the proposition laid down by Arago, "Tin)*
qu'une maniere rationelle et juste d*ecrire Thistoire des sciences, c'est ^
s'appuyer exdusivement sur des publications ayant date certaine : hors de ii
tout est confusion et obscurite.*' The singularly delayed publication of tie
lEVankischen Kalender'soder der Fractica (1612), and of the astronomicaliy
Important memoir entitled " Mundus Jovialis anno 1609 detectns ope pff-
spidlli Belgici (Feb. 1614)," Inay indeed have given occasion to the sospicioD
that Marius had derived information from the Nuncios Sidereos of OalBeoi
the dedication of which bears date in March 1610, ot even firom earlier cod*

NOTES. CSY

"^'ommcations by letter. Galileo, excited by the not forgotten law-suit againit
P'^althasar Capra, calls bim a pupil of the Marius, " usurpat(ure del Sistema £
^ ^Giore" ; Galileo eveu reproaches the heretical protestant astronomer of Gunzen*
hansen with founding the apparently earlier date of his observation on a oon-
i,piff''fogion between the calendars. " Taee il Mario di far canto il lettore, come
Ki'cssendo ^ separato della chiesa nostra, ne avendo aocettato Temendaitioiie
i6?''gregoriana, il giomo 7 di Gennaio del 1610 di noi cattolici (the day on which
^ Galileo diseoirered the satellites) e Tistesso, che il d^ 28 di Decembre del 1609
)i'-di loro eretici, e questa k tutta la precedenza delle sue finte osservationi"
His (Venturi, Memorie e Lettere di G. Galilei, 1818, P. i p. 279 ; and Delambre,
^^ Hist, de TAstr. mod. T. i. p. 696). According to a letter which Galileo
SUP wrote, in 1614, to the Accademia di lincffl, he, somewhat unphilosophicaUy,
s t thought of addressing his eomplaint against Marius to the Marchese di Bran*
I i^ deburgo. On the whole, however, Gkdileo continued well disposed towards
(Sd^ the German astronomers. He writes, in March 1611, " Gli ingegni singo*
I St lari, che in gran numero fiorisoono nell' Alemagna, mi hanno Inngo tempo
^.« tennto in desiderio di vederW (Opere, T. ii. p. 44). It has always appeared
^ to me remarkable, that if, in a conversation with Marius, Kepler was playfully
elted as a sponsor for the bestowal of the mythological denominations of lo
and Callisto, there should not occur any mention of his countryman, either in
the Commentary to the Nuncius Sidereus, nuper ad mortales a Galilseo missus,
IV published in Prague, in April 1610, or in Ms letters to Galileo or to the
^ Emperor Rudolph in the autumn of the same year ; instead of which, Kepler
f< every where speaks of "the glorious discovery of the Medicean stars by
;, Galileo." In publishing his own observations of the satellites, made firom the
4th to the 9th of September, 1610, he gives to a little memoir which appeared
^ Kt Frankfort in 1611, the title, " Kepleri Narratio de Observatis a se quatuor
Jovis Satellitibus erronibus qnos Galilseus Mathematicus florentinus jure in-
ventionis Medicea Sidera nuncupavit. " A letter addressed to Galileo firom
f Prague^ Oct. 25, 1610, concludes with the words "neminem habee, quern
, metuas eemulam." Compare Yenturi, P. i. p. 100, 117, 139, 144, and 149.
Baron von Zach, misled by a mistake, and after a by no means careful exami-
nation of the valuable manuscripts preserved at Petworth, the seat of Lord
Egremont, stated that the distinguished astronomer and Virginian traveller,
Thomas Harriot, had discovered the satellites of Jupiter at the same time as
Galileo, and even earlier. A more dose examination of Harriot's manuscripts,
by Rigaud, has shewn that they began, not on the 16th of January, but only
on the 17th of October, 1610, nine months after GalOeo and Marius. (Com-

■hi-

p^

CXVl K0TE8.

pare Zach, Corr. Astron. Tol. ?ii. p. 105 ; Bigand, Account of Harnotft
Astron. Papers, Oxford, 1833, p. 87 ; Biewster, Martjrs of Science, IStt,
p. 82. The earliest obsenrations of Jupiter's satellites hj Galileo tuA In
papil Benieri, were only discovered two years ago.

(^) p. 817.*^It ooght to be 78 years ; for the prohibitioiL of the Copoii-
ean system by the Congregation of the "Index was given on the 5tii of
March, 1616.

(•") p. 817. — ^Freiherrvon Breitschwert, Keppler's Leben, S. 86.

(^ p. 817.— Sir John Herschel, Astron. S. 465.

(*^ p. 318. — Galilei, Opere, T. ii. (Longitodine per via dc* Piafi
Medicci), p. 435—506 ; NeUi, Vita, Vol. 2, p". 656—688 ; Ventnri, Meawri
e Lettere di G. Galilei, P. i. p. 177. As early as 1612, or scarcely tiro jai*
after the discovery of Jupiter's satellites, Galileo boasted, somewhat pm*'
tardy, of having completed tables of those satellites to sach a d^jree d
exactness, that the phenomena could be computed by them to 1' of time. A
long diplomatic correspondence, which did not lead to the desired object, «s
conmienced with the Spanish ambassador in 1616, and with, the Butch amitf-
sador in 1636. The telescopes were to magnify 40 to 50 times. In oris
to find the satellites more easily when the ship is in motion, and (ask
imagined) to keep them in the field, he invented, in 1617 (Nelli, Vdii
p. 663), the binocular telescope, which has usually been attributed to tk
Capucine monk, Schyrleus de Kheita, who had much experience in o^
matters, and was seeking to find the means of constructing telescopes magni-
fying 4000 times. Galileo made experiments with his binocular (to whidike
also gave the name of celatone or testiera) in the harbour of Leghorn, dniiK
a strong wind and much motion of the ship. He also had a contrivance jt^
pared in the arsenal at Pisa, for protecting the observer of the satellites froa
the motion of the ship, by seating him in a kind of boat, which was to M
in another boat filled with water or with oil (Lettera al Piechena de 22 Manoi
1617; NeUi, Vita, Vol i. p. 184; GalUei, Opere, T. ii. p. 478; Letteni
Lorenzo Kealio del 5 Giugno, 1637). The proofs which Galileo assigns of tk
advantages for the naval service of his method over Morin's method of lonv
distances, are very remarkable. (Opere, T. ii. p. 454)

(«0 p. 319.--Arago, in the Annuaire for 1842, pp. 460—476 (DecouTate
des taches Solaires et de la Rotation du Soleil), and Brewster (Martyn ti
Science, pp. 36 and 39) place the first observation of Galileo in October tf
November 1610. Compare Nelli, Vita, Vol. i. pp. 824—384 ; Galilei, Op«ft
T' i. p. lii. T. ii. pp. 85—200, T. iv. p. 53. On Harriot's observations^ »

NOTES. CXVll

Stigaod, pp. 32 snd 38. The Jesuit Schoner, who was summoned from Grati
|to Borne, has been accused of seeking to revenge himself of Galileo on account
of the literary contest respecting the discovery of the solar spots, by getting it
whispered, througb another Jesuit, Grassi, to Pope Urban VIII. that be (tbe
Pope) was the person represented by the foolish and ignorant Simplicius in the
Dialoghi delle Scienze Nuove (Nelli, Vol. ii. p. 515).

(^ p. 320.— Delambre, Hist, de I'Astronomie modeme, T. i. p. 690.

(*^ p. 320,--In Galileo's Lettersto the Principe Cesi (May 25, 1612) the
same opinion is expressed ; Venturi, P. i. p. 172.

(^ p. 321. — See on this subject some ingenious and interesting conside-
rations by Arago, in the Annuaire pour Tan 1842, pp. 481^i88. (The
experiments with Bnimmond's light projected on tbe sun's disk are mentioned
by Sir John Herschel in his Astronomy, S. 334.)

(*^) p, 321. — Giordano Brano und Nic. von Cusa verglichen, von
J. Clemens, 1847, S. 101. On the phases of Venus, see Galileo, Opere, T. ii.
p. 53, and NeUi, Vita, Vol. i. pp. 213—215.

(^) p. 322.— Compare Kosmos, Bd. L S. 160 and 416 ; Eng. translation.
Vol. i. p. 144, Note 120.

{*^) p. 323. — Laplace says of Kepler's theory of tbe measurement of casks
(Stereometria doUorum, 1615, which, like Archimedes, contains the develop-
ment of elevated ideas in reference to an insignificant subject) r — Kepler
presente dans oet ouvrage des vues sur I'infini qui ont influ^ sur la revolution
que la geometric a eprouvee a la fin du 17*** si^le ; et Fermat, que Ton doit
regarder comme le veritable inventeur du caleul dif^rentiel, a fond^ sur elles
sa belle methode de maxima et minimis (Precis de I'hist. de I'Astronomie,
1821, p. 95). On the geometrical aeuteness manifested by Kepler in the five
books of his Harmonices Muudi, see Chasles, Aper9u lust, des Methodes en
Geometrie, 1837, pp. 482—487.

{^) p. 323, — Sir David Brewster says well in the account of Kepler's
method of investigating trutb : — " The influence of imagination as an instru-
ment of research has been much overlooked by those who have ventured to
give laws to philosophy. This faculty is of greatest value in physical inquiries :
if we use it as a guide, and confide in its indications, it will infallibly deceive
OS ; but if we employ it as an auxiliary, it wiU afford us tbe most invaluable
aid" (Martyrs of Science, p. 215).

{^) p- 324.— Arago, in tiie Annuaire, 1842, p. 434 (De la transformation
des Nebuleuses et de la mati^re diffuse en Voiles). Compare Kosmos, Bd. i.
S. 148 and 158 (English trandation. Vol i. pp. 132 and 142).

CXVm KOTES.

(**) p. S24.— Compan the idaM of Sir Joha Hendid on the pootioD d
our planetarj ■ystem, Kotmos, Bd. i. S. 157 tad 415 ; and Stntre, £lnki
d'ABtronomie Stellaira, 1847, p. 4.

(^ p. 824.— Apdt nys (Epochea der Oaadiiohte de Mensdilieifc, 'BLi
1845,8.233): '< The xenurkable law of tha diataiioc% ihaA wndtf fma
under the name of Bode's law (or that of Titioa), waa a diaoovery of Kegka'k
who, after manj yeara of peraerering iadnatry, first deduced it faj caleahtiai
from the obaervationa of l^cho de Brahe." See HannonieeB Mondi, liin
qninqne, cap. 8. Compare also Coomot, Additiona to a TnmalatkNi of Sir
John Heradiel, Traite d'Aatronomie. 1834, S. 434, p. 824, and Friea, Vorie-
aongen uber die Stemkonde, 1818, S. 825 (Law of the distances in lie
aeoondaiy planets or satellitea). The pasaagea fifom Hato^ Flinj, Cetaanm
and Achillea Tatins, in the Prolegomena to the Aialna, are caiefolly eolleetoi
in Fries, Geschichte der Philosophie, Bd. i. 1887, S. 146--150 ; in Maztin,
Etndea snr le Timee, T. it p. 88 ; andin Brsndis, Geachichte der Cbnedick-
Romischen Philosophie, Th. iL Ahth. i. 1844, S. 364.

(^ p. 325. — ^Delambre, Hist, de rAatroaomia modenus, T. L p. 360.
(^^) p. 825.— Arago, in the Anunaire for 1842, ppC 560—564 (Koaam
Bd. L S. 102; Engliah translation, VoL i p. 88).

(^ p. 826.— Compare Koamoa, Bd. i. S. 142—148, and 412 (Ei^
tnmsLation, Vol. i. p. 127—188, Notea, 91—92,)

(^ p. 327. — ^Annnaira da Bnrean dea longitodea poar Tan 184S,
p. 312 — 353 (Etoilea changeantea on p6iodiqQea). la the aeventeeiA
eentniy there were recognised aa YariaUe atara, hesidea Mira Ceti (HolmaAi

1638) and a Hydne (Montanari, 1672), jB Peeaei or Algol, and X P^ (Kin^
1686). OnwhatGa]ileocaUanehQlse,aeehiaOpere,T.ii. p. 15, andNdE,
Vita, Vol. iL p. 208. Hnygans, in the Sastema Satmminnm, pcnnts ia tte
dearest manner to the nehnla in the sword of Oiion, in saying of naMa
generally : — " Cui certe simile alind noaqnam apnd reliqoas fixas potoi aniiai^
Tertere. Nam ceterie nebnlosse olim exiskimatse atqoe ipsa Tia ketea, pcnp
cilHa inspectse, nnllaa nebulas habere oomperiantor aeqoe alind esse iflm
plnrinm stellaram congeries et fireqnentia." Tina passage ahewa tU
Huygens (as previously Galileo) had not attentiTely considered Qm ndnla ii
Andromeda which Marias had first described.

(^) p. 329. — On the important law, discovered by Brewator, of tha e»
nection between the angle of complete polarisati<»i and the refractive power
of bodies, see Philosophical Tranaactiona of the Boyal Society for tiie vor
I815,pp. 125— 159.

NOTES. CXix

(■^ p. 329. — See Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 85 and 48; Eaglish translation.
Vol. i. p. 37. Note 16.

^0^ p. 329. — Sir David Brewster, in Berghans and Joimson*s Physical
Atlas, 1847, Part vii. p. 5 (Polarisation of the Atmosphere).

(^^ p. 329. — On Grimaldi's and Hooke's attempt to explain the polari*
sation (?) of soap-bubbles by the interference of the rays of light, see Arago,
in the Annuaire for 1831, p. 164 (Brewster's Life of Newton, p. 53).

(^ p. 330. — Brewster, life of Sir Isaac Newton, p. 17. The year
1660 has been assumed for the date of the invention of the method of fluxions,
which, according to the official explanations of the Committee of the Boyal
Society of London, April 24, 1712, is "one and the same with the differen-
tial method, excepting the name and mode of notation." For the whole
unhappy coirtest with Leibnitz on the subject of priority, in which, extra-
ordinary to say, accusations against Newton's veracity were even interspersed,
see Brewster, pp. 189 — 218. That all colours are contained in white light
was already maintained by De la Chambre, in his work entitled " La Lumiere"
(Paris, 1657), and by Isaac Vossius, who was afterwards a Canon at Windsor,
in a remarkable memoir, entitled " Be Lucis natura et proprietate" (Amstelod.
1662), for the communication of which I was indebted two years ago to M.
Arago, at Paris. This memoir is treated of by Brandes in the new edition of
Gehler's physikalischen Worterbuch, Bd. iv. (1827), S. 48, and very circnm-
atontially by Wilde, in his Gesch. der Optik, Th. i. (1838), S. 223, 228, and
817). Isaac Vossius, however, regarded sulphur, which forms, according to
him, a component part of all bodies, as the fundamental snWance of all
colours (cap. 25, p. 60). In Vossii Responsum ad objecta Joh. de Bruyn,
Ptofessoris Trajectini, et Petri Petiti, 1663, it is said, p. 69 — Nee lumen
nllnm est absque calore, nee calor ullus absque lumine. Lux, sonus, anima (!)
odor, vis magnetica, quamvis incorporea, sunt tamen aliquid (De Lucis Nat.
d^. 13, p. 29).

(M9) p. 831.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 427 and 429, Bd. ii. S. 482, Anm. 92,
EngL trans. Vol. i. Notes 141 and 144, Vol. ii. Note 432.

if^ p. 331. — Lord Bacon, whose comprehensive and, generally speaking,
firee and methodical views were unfortunately accompanied by very limited
mathematical and physical knowledge, even for the period at which he lived,
therefore did Gilbert the greater iDJustice. "Bacon showed his inferior
aptitude for physical research in rejecting the Copemioan doctrine which
William Gilbert adopted (WheweU, Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,
VoL ii. p. 378.)

CXX NOTES.

(*") p. SSl.^-KosmoB, Bd. i. S. 194 und 485, Anm. 31 and 32, 'Eofi
trans. Vol. i. p. 176, Notes 161 and 162.

('^ p. 332. — ^The first observations of the kind were made on the tower of the
Augustine's chorch, at Mantua (1 590.) Gnmaldi and Gassendi were acquaiated
with similar instances, all in geographical latitudes where the inclination of
the magnetic needle is very considerable. On the subject of the first measure-
ments of the magnetic intensity bj the oscillation of a needle, compare my
Relation hist. T. i. pp. 260—264, and Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 432 — 434 (EngL
transL Vol. i. Note 159).

('") p. 834.— Kosmos, Bd. L S. 436—489, Anm. 86 (Engl, trans. \d. I
Note 166).

(»") p. 834.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 189 (Engl, trans. Vol. i. p. 171.)

("* bis) p. 835. — [AddiUonal note by the Editor. — The desire so eaniesfly
expressed by the author in the text, pp. 334 and 335, that " the laws of ter-
restrial magnetism should be thoroughly sought out by naval expeditiona^
which should examine, as nearly as possible at the same time the state of
magnetism over all the accessible parts of the globe which are coTcred by tbe
ocean," that " such expeditions should be combined with land surreys," and
that " the year 1850 might deserve to be marked as the first normal epoch in
which the materials of a magnetic map of the world should be assembled,"
is much nearer, its fulfilment than M. de Humboldt seems to have been
aware of when the second volume of Kosmos was published in Germany
(October 1847). The antarctic expedition of Sir James Clark Boss, referred
to in the text, has been followed by that of Lieuts. Moore, B.N. and Oerk,
Royal Artillery (1845), by which the magnetic survey of the accessible per-
tions of the high latitudes of the southern hemisphere has been completed;
by the voyages of lieuts. Smith and Dayman, R.N. (1844 and 1845) between
the Cape of Good Hope and Van Diemen Island ; of Lieut. Moore, R.N. (1846)
to Hudson's Bay; and by the land expedition of lieut. Lefroy, Royid
Artillery (1843-44), by which the whole of British North America east of the
Rocky Mountains, from the frontiers of the United States to the shores of
Hudson's Bay and the Polar ocean, has been magnetically surveyed. These
were all special surveys, undertaken by the British Government expressly for
the magnetical purposes which they accomplished ; and, with the exception of
the observations in Lieutenant Moore's voyage to Hudson's Bay, which are now
(February 1848) in process of reduction, their results have been deduced and
published. In addition to special expeditions to peats of the globe which are
cither remote or difficult of access, the British Government has avaQed itsdf

K0TE8. CXxi

of the services of Her Migesiy's sliips and vessels employed in Hydrogrephical
Surveys, by directing that determinations of the three magnetic elements shonki
be made by them at the several ports and harbours which they may visit, as
well as at sea daily , as often as the weather permits, in their passages from
port to port. Snch determinations have been executed, in whole or in part,
l>7 the surveying expeditions of Sir Edward Belcher (1837 — 1840, and 1848 —
1647) to the north-west coast of America, the islands of the Pacific, and the Indian
and Chinese seas ; of Captain Sullivan (1838—1839) to the Falkland Ishmds ;
of Captain Allen (1841 — 1842) to the western coast of Africa; of Captain
Blackwood (1842—1846) to Australia and Torres Strait ; of Captain Bamett
(1843—18 *) to Bermuda and the West Indies; of Captain Xellett
(1845 — 18 *) to the Pacific ; of the Arctic Expedition under Sir John
Franklin (1845—18 *) j of Captain Stanley (1847—18 *) to Australia
and New Guinea ; of Captain Moore (1848 — 18 *) to Kamptschatka and
Behring's Strait; and of Captain Stokes (1848—18 *) to New Zealand.
To these should be added, as a special undertaking at the expense of the East
India Company, a magnetic survey of the islands of the Indian Archipelago,
by lieut. Elliot, of the Madras Engineers, commenced in 1846, and stQl in
progress. Wlien it is remembered that several of the above-named surveys
include periods of three or four yesrs, and in some instances not only deter-
minations at the several ports and harbours which may have been visited, but
also daily observations, weather permitting, of the three magnetic elements at
sea in passages from port to port, the accumulation of materials, and their
already extensive distribution over the surface of the globe, may in some
degree be judged of. These surveys, with others which may be expected to
be made under the present favourable disposition of Her Mi^esty's Grovem-
ment towards scientific researches, and, taken in conjunction with extensive
magnetic surveys which are in progress on the continent of Europe (particu-
larly in the Austrian dominions), give a full promise of the speedy reaUsation
of M. de Humboldt's wish so earnestly expressed, that the materials of tho
first general magnetic map of the globe should be assembled, and even permit
the anticipation, that the first normal epoch of such a map will be but little
removed from the year 1850.]

(^^) p. 335. — On the oldest thermometers, see Nelli, Vita e Commercio
Hiterario di Galilei (Losanna, 1793), Vol. i. p. 68 — 94; Opere di Galilei
(Padovo, 1744), T. i. p. Iv. ; libri, Histoire des Sciences mathematiqnes en

« When the concluding date is not filled ur. the observations are still in proj^nress.

czxii yens.

Italie, T. iv. 1841, p. 195--197. Svidenoe rwpeeting the first wmpintifB
obMrwtioiis of tempentore vomj be found in the letters of Gianfrineean
Sagredo and Benedetto CasteUi, in 1613, 161S, nnd 1083, In Tentnri. Me-
worie e Lettere inedite di Galilei, P. i. 1818, p. 20.

(^ p. S85.— -Yiuoeiuno Auiinori, in the Saggi di Natnrali Eaperiesa^
fiitte uell' a Aocademia del Cimento, 1841, p. SO— -44.

(f"^ p. 885. — On the determination of the ihennometric scale of the i6»
deniia del Cimento, and on the meteorological ohsenrations continiied fiff If
years by Eather Baineri, a pupil of Galileo, see Libri, in the Aooales &
Chimie et de Physique, T. iIt. 1830, p. 854 ; and a more reoent similar vori
by Sdiouw, in his Tableau du Climat et de k V^^tatxon de ritalii^ 183%
T. 99—106.

(^ p. 836.^Antinori, Saggi ddl' Accad. del Om. 1841^ p. lU, and id
the Aggiunte at the end of the book, p. lixvi

(f^ p. 887.— Antinori, p. 29.

n p. 387.— Ben. Gartesii EpistolsB (AmsteL 1682), P. iiL £^. 67.

(*>^) p. 337.— Baeon's Works, by Shaw, 1733, Vol. iii p. 441 (see Kosbm^
Bd. i S. 888 and 479, Anm. 58 ; EngL trans. Vol. i. p. 310^ and note 38S)

(n P- 888.— Hooke's Posthumous Works, p. 364. (Compare my BM
historique, T. 1. p. 199.) Hooke however, unhappily, like GalUeo, assamed
a di&renoe in the vdocity of rotation of the earth and of the atmog^pkn:
see Posth. Works, p. 88 and 363.

f^ p. 388. — ^Although Galileo also speaks of the remaining bdiind of tk
particles of air as a cause of the Trade Winds, yet his view ought not
to be confounded with that of Hooke and Hadley as it has receatlf ^
een. Galileo, in the Dialogo quarto (Opere, T. iv. p. 311) makes Saiviiti
say : " Dicevsmo pur* ora che Y aria, come corpo tenue, e fluido, e non Mf
mento oongiunto alia terra, pareva, che non aTesse necessitik d' obbediie alsao
moto, se non in quanto V asprezza della superfide terrestre ne rapisce, e seeo
porta una parte a se contigua, che di non molto intervallo soprairanza le mag-
gi<»i altezze delle montagne; la qual porzion d' aria tanto meno dovr^ esm
leniteute alia OQUversion terrestre, quauto che ella h ripiena di vapori, fasa,
ed esalazioni, materie tutte participanti delle quality terrene : e per oqdm-
gnenza atte nate per lor natura (P) ai medesimi movimenti. Ma dove mm-
cassero le cause del moto, cio^ dova la superficie del gbbo avesse grandi sptfi
piani, e meuo vi fosse della mistione dei Vf^xui teireui, quivi oesserebe in
parte Ib causa, per la qule V aria ambiente dovesse totalmente obbedrie il
lapimento della conversion terrestre ; si ehe in taliluoghi, mentre chela teni

•«•

NOOB. Gxxrn

M Tolge vemo OanaSa^ ndovnbbe ae&tir oontixniameiite on vento, ehe ci ferisse,
spiraodo da Lefaate verao Pononte; e tale s^amento doyiebbe fiurai piu sen-
aibile* dove la rerUgine del i^obo AiBse piu velooe : il che sarebbe ne i Inogbi
piu remoti da i Poli) e vicini al cerchio massimo della dinnia conversioiie.
L'esperieiusa applaude molto a questo filoBofioo disoono, poichd ne gli ampi
man sottopoati aDa Zona tofrida, dove anco 1' evaporazioid terrestri man-
oaao (?) ai acute una perpetna aura muovere da Oriente. . . . ."

C^ p. BSS.^-Bnwster, in the Sdinbnrgh Journal of Science, Vol. ii.
1825, p. 145. Sturm haa described the Differential Thermometer in a little
work, entitled, CoU^um ezperimentale cnriosam, (Nuremberg, 1670f) p. 49.
On the Baconian law of the rotation of the wind, which Dove first extended to
both zonea^ and reoognised in its intimate connection with the causes of all aerial
currents, see the detailed treatise of Mundce in the new edition of Gehler*s
PhyaikaL Worterboch, Bd. x. S. 2003— 2ai9 and 2030—2035.
(528) p. 339.— Antinori, p. 46, and even in the Saggi, p. 17—19.
(^ p. BSO.—- Venturi, Essai star lea ouvragea physico-math^matiques de
L^nard de Yind, 1797, p. 28.

(^ p. 889.— Biblioth^ue universelle de Geneve, T. xxvii. 1824, p. 120.
(«») p. 340.— Gilbert de Magnate, lib. ii. cap. 2—4, p. 46—71. In in-
terpreting the nomenolature employed he alreacfy said : " Mectrica quae attra*
hit eadem ratione ut deotrom, versorimn non magnetioom ex quovis metaUo,
inserviena electrida experimentia." In the text itself we find It said ; " Mag-
neticd ut ita dieam, vel electriet attrahere (vim illam deetricam nobis phicet
appellare . . • .) (p. 52); ''effluvia deotrica» attiactiones eUctrics." He
neither employed the abstract expression ekctridtat, nor the barbarous term
magnetismns intiodoeed in the 18th century. On the derivation of liKtierpov,
the " attracter or drawer, and the drawing or attracting stone,*' from e\|»
and cXiicffcy, already indicated in the Timnus of Plato, p. 80 c, and the proba-
ble transition through a harder ^kierpw, see Buttmann, Mythologns, Bd. ii.
(1829), S. 357. Among the theoretical propositions put forward by Gilbert
(whifih are not always expicesad with equal eleamess), I select the following :
" Cum duo sint corporom genera, quA manifestia sensibus nostris motionibus
corpora aUicarc vidantar, Blecixica et Magnetica; Electrica naturalibus ab
hmnore effluviis; Magnetica formalibua effidentiis seu potius primariis vigo-
ribiut, ineitationfls fiwiunt. .... f adle eat hominibua ingenio acutji, absque
experimentis et usu rerum labi, et ertare. Subatantie proprietates aut fiimN
Uaritatea, sunt generalea mmis^ neo tamoi vene designate causee, atque, ut
ita dioam, verba qrwdam sonant, re ipaft mhil in apeeie oitendunt. Nequia

eVJJ NOTES,

jsU taccini orediU attraetio, a aingnlaii aliqnll proprieUte snbrtaiitise, a^
fapiiliaritate auurgit; cam in plaribiu aliis oorp<Mribiis eundem effectom,
migori industria invenimoa, et omnia etiam corpora d^nsmodicimqne pn^
prietatia, ab omniboa iUiia alUdontar." (De Magnete, p. 50, 51, 60, and (S5.}
Gilbert's principal labours appear to belong to the mterral from 1590 to 1600.
Wbewell joatly assigns him an important place among thoae jrhom he terms
'* practical Reformers of the physical scienoea." Gilbert was snigeon to
Queen Elizabeth and James I. and died in 1603. A second work, entitled
"Be Mondo noatro snblunari Philoaophia Nova," was pnhliahed after litt
death.

e») p. 341.— Brewater, life of Newton, p. 307.

(^ p. 344. — Rey, atrictly speaking^ only mentions the acoeaa of air to
the oxidea ; he did not know that the oxidea themselves (which were tha
called metallic cakes) are only combinations of metals and air. Accordu^
to him, the air makes " the calx heavier, as sand increases in weight irites
water hangs about it." The calx is sosceptible of being saturated witb aii«
"L'air espaissi s'attache k la chaux, ainsi le poids angmente dn oommoicr-
■lent jusqu'^ la fin : maia qnand tont en est affuble, elle u'en s^nzoit prende
d'avantage. Ne continuez plus votre calcination aonbs cet espoir, vons peN
driez vostre peine." Bey's work thus contains the first approximation to tke
better explanation of a phenomenon, the more complete nnderstaodiiigo^
which was afterwards influential in reforming the whole of chemistry. See
Kopp, Gesch. der Chemie, Th. iii. S. 131 — 133. (Compare also in the some
work, Th. i S. 116—127, and Th. iii. S. 119—138, as well as S. 175-
195.)

(^) p. 345. — ^Priestley 'a last complaint of that which "Lavoisier ii
deemed to have appropriated to himself," makea itself heard in his little
memoir entitled, " The Doctrine of Phlogiston established," 1800, p. 43.

C^ p. 346.— Sir John Uerschel, Discourse <m the Study of NatiunJ Hu-
losophy, p. 116.

(*^ p. 346.— Humboldt, Eaaai g^ognoatiqne sor U Gisement des Bodm
dans les deux Hemispheres, 1823, p. 38.

(634) p, 347.— Steno de Solido intra Solidnm natonditer oontento, 166%
p. 2, 17, 28, 63, and 69 (fig. 20—35).

(^) p. 347. — Venturi, Easai snr les Onvrages phyaioo-math^uati^ (b
Xeonard de Vinci, 1797, S. 5, No. 124.

(^^ p. 347. — Agostino SdUa, La vana Specnlazione disingannata dal
Senso, Nap. 1670, Tab. xii. fig. 1« Compare Joh. MiOler,. Beiicht fiber dii

NOTES. CXXT

voQ Herra Kocli, in Alabama gesammelten fossilen Enochenreste seines Hy-
drachus (the Basilosaums of Harlan, 1835 ; the Zeaglodon of Owen, 1839;
the Squalodon of Grateloap, 1840 ; the Domdon of Gibbes, 1845), read in
the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin, April — Jnne 1847. These valnabb
fossil remains of an animal of the ancient world, which were collected in the
state of Alabama (in Washington County, not far from Glarksville), have be-
come by the mmiificenoe of oar King, since 1847* the property of the
Zoological Mnseom at Berlin. Besides the remains found in Alabama and
South Carolina, parts of the Hydrachus have been found in Europe, at Leog-
nan near Bordeaux, not far from Linz on the Danube, and, in 1670, in
Malta.

(^) p. 348. — Martin Lister, in the Philosophical Transactions, Vol. vi.
1671, No. kxvi. p. 2283.

(^ p. 348.— See a luminous ezposiLion of the earlier progress of palseon-
tological studies, in WheweU's History of the Inductive Sciences, 1837, Vol.
iu. p. 507—545.

(^) p. 349. — Leibnizen's geschichtliche Aufsatze nnd Gedichte, herauB-
gegeben von Pertz, 1847 (in the gesammelten Werken : Geschichte, Bd.
iv.) On the first, Protogsea of 1691, and the subs^uent revisions, see Tell*
kampf, Jahresbericht der Burgerschule zu Hannover, 1847, S. 1 — 32.
(*«) p. 350.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 172 (Engl, trans. Vol. i. p. 155).
("0 p. 350. — Delambre, Hist, de 1' Astronomic mod. T. ii. p. 601.
C^ p. 351.— Kosmos, Bd i. S. 171 (Engl, trans. Vol. i. ^. 154). The
*ontest respecting priority relative to the knowledge of the earth's compres-
sion, in reference to a memoir read by Huygens, in 1669, before the Paris
. Academy, was first cleared up by Delambre, in his Hist, de TAstr. mod. T. i.
p. Ui. and T. ii. p. 558. Richer's return to Europe took place indeed in 1673,
but his work was not printed until 1679 ; and as Huygens left Paris in
1682, he did not write the Additamentum to the Memoir of 1669, the publi-
cation of which was very late, until the period when he had already beforo
his eyes the results of Richer's Pendulum Experiments, and of Newton's great
work, Philosophise Naturalis Principia Mathematica.
(^ p. 351.— Bessel, in Schumacher's Jahrbuch fiir 1843, S. 32.
("*) p. 352.— Wilhelm von Humboldt, gesammelte Werke, Bd. i. S. 11.
(^) P' 3^3- — Schleiden, Grundzuge der wissenschaftUchen Botanik, Th. i.
1845, S. 152, Th. ii. S. 76; Kunth, Lchrbuch der Botanik, TL i. 1847, S.
91—100, and 505.

INDEX TO VOL. n.

^<^i^^^^M»*^w^M^^M^

Abacus, p. 104, 227 ; Note 359.

Accademia del Cimento, p. 335—339. See Cimento.

^lian, his description of the Yale of Tempe, p. 13.

iBneid, descriptions of nature in the, p. 18, 19.

Africa, its supposed circamnavig^tion by Phoenician ships under Nechos IL
p. 125; Note 163. Phoenician colonies on the north-west of, p. 129; Notes
172, 173. Navigation of its western coast to the Cape of Good Hope, p. 255,
366; Note 397.

Albertus Ma^us, his garden in the Dominican Convent at Cologfne, Note 124 ;
his influence in advancing natural knowledge and preparing the way for the
epoch of Columbus and the great oceanic discoveries, p. 246—248 ; Note 381.

Alexander, influence of his expeditions, conquests, and policy on the history of
the physical contemplation of the universe, p. 149—165.

Alexan<hrian Museum or Institute, p. 172—177.

Algebra, the algebraist Diophantus, p. 182. Of the Arabians and Indians, p. 225
—228; Notes 355— 358.

AHiaco (Cardinal), Alliacus, or Pierre d'AiUy, his Imago Mundi, p. 249, 250;
Notes 385, 386.

Alphabetical writing communicated by the Phoenicians to the Greeks, p. 126, 127 ;
Notes 166, 167.

Alps, apparent general indiflference of the ancients to the grandeur of their see*
nary, p. 24.

Amber, the andent trade in, and the countries from whence it was obtained, pi.
128, 129, 134 ; Note 171.

America, influence of its discovery, p. 52—56. Interval between the first and last
steps to that discovery from the foundation of Tartessus to the voyage of Eric
Rauda and to Columbus, p. 129, 130. Discovery of North Amerioa (Vinland), by
Leif, the son of Eric the Red, p. 233—240 ; Note 362. Semi-fabulous or doubtful
accounts of earlier discoveries of North America (White Man's Land, cr
Viiginia) by Irishmen, p. 236, 237 ; Note 371 : by Madoc, p. 238 ; Note 373.

exxym inbkz.

Contrut betwven the etrilar leMniDgly aoeidentel and compantiTdy frndoi
diicoveriM of America by the Northmen, end its re-disoovery by Colnmbn.
p. MO, S41. Gradual prqwrauon of Colambus's diacoTery during precednc
centnriet, p. 343 et leq. : ita coincidence with the epoch of other gnat lal
inilaential occurrencea and evenU, p. 396, 299 : ita important inteOedaii
and moral conieqaencea, p. 399, 300. Epoch of the arrival of BCanco C^ac,
p. 996. Nonpastoral babita of the aboriginal races of America, NotetiSi
Diicaaaionof the accidental caaaea which led to the name of America, ui
exculpation of Amerigo Veapacci flrom blame on that acooont, p. 999; Note 457.

Analytical calculna, ita inilaence, p. 803, S53.

Angbiera (Peter Martyr)^ hia lettera on the great Keogrmfildcml diacoveriei tkais
progresa, p. 361, 363 ; Note 406.

Anglo-Sazon, extracta from an Anglo-Saxon poem. Note S5.

Antar, the Arabian poem of, p. 48 ; Note 73.

Anthology, the Greek, p. IS.

Arabiana, their poetic literature in reference to nature, p. 48, 49 ; Notes iy-T(.
Their influence on Eoropean cultivation, and on the progress of natonl
knowledge, p. 301—329 ; Notes, 313— 360. Aatronomy, chemiatry, andalgebn
of the Arabians, see those heads respectively. Diacuaaion of the prohabktf-
feet on modem intellectual and artistic cultivation of the longer coutinnnoe
and wider extension of Arab sway, p. 338, 339. What may be tenaed tie
*' after action" of their influence in Europe fiivonrable to science and astmii
knowledge, p. 343, 344, 346, 359.

Archipelago (Grecian), with Asia Minor, the uniting link between Greece n'
Eastern Aaia, p. 137.

Argonauts, expedition of the, to Colchis, p. 140.

Ariana, the East and West, (or Indians and Persians) their poetic literatnie is
reference to nature, p. 37 — 43.

Ariatarchna of Samos, his views respecting the structure of the nrnverse, p. Ifl^
176, 309.

Aristotle, passagea quoted from, p. 14, 16, 150, 151, 160. Influence of, p. 156 c(
aeq., 173, 344, 346. His zoological writings, p. 167 ; Notes 235, 237, 339. An-
bic and Latin translations of, p. 218 ; Notes 338, 339.

Astronomy of the ancients, p. 105, 106, 308—310; Notes 467, 469, 473—476. Oftht
Chaldeans, p. 162 ; Note 248. Of the Greeks and Greco-Egyptians, p. lO*
175, 176. Of the Arabians and Indians, p. 221—225, 389; Notes 350-3M-
Knowledge of the southern heavens gained in the epoch of the oceanic dixo-
veries, 287— 293 ; Notes 443-450. Rapid advancen.nit of astronomy ia tbe
aucceediog epoch,— Copernicus, Tycho Brshe, the discovery of the telescope
Galileo. Kepler, and Newton, p. 301—328.

(Nautical), p. 258, 259, 293—296; Note 454.

Atlantic first opened by the Phoenicians, p. 129, 130 : and to the Greeks by the ?■»•
sage of Colsus of Samos, p. 146. Boundless prospect thus opened, and tai-
dency of successive nations towards the unknown west, p. 129, ISO, 146, 147.
Early navigation of the Catalans to the west coast of Africa and discovery of
the Azores, p. 258. Papal " line of demarcation" in the Atlantic, and its pby«
•ical characteristics as assigned by Ck)lumbus, p. 279, 280; Note 431. Cu^
rents in the Atlantic, p. 286, 287 ; Note 441. Tracts covered with seaweed,
p. 287.

Atmosphere^ invention of instruments for determining its temperature, pressanv

IHDBS. CXXIZ

and moittnre, p. 835—339; Notes 5U, 594^537% InvesftigvilioBi ooonectM
with its chemical compotitioi^ p. 8tft— 346; Notes 53&, 531.
AuBOiiiiiSy poem on the Moselle, p. 21.

Bicon (Roger), p. 30, 243, 2«8, 249; Notes 382—384.

— (Francis), p. 313. Bid not receive the Copemican sytAejH, p. 837. Hli

Historia naturalis et experimentalis de ventis, p. 337, 338.
Ba<!trito empire, its inf trence, p. 150.

Balboa, his first sig:ht of the Pacific Ocean or South Sea, p. 270 ; Note 422.
Barometer, its invention; first nsed for determining hdghts; its value both as

a hypsometric and meteorological instrament, p. 337.
Basil the Great ; beantifol description of the scenery surrounding his hermitage,

p. 26—28; Notes 46; 47. Descriptions of nature in his HomiHes, p. 28;

Note 48.
Bauer (Ferdinand), drawings of scenery and vegetation in New Holland and Van

JMemen Island, p. 88.
B6iiaim (Martin), directed to make solar tables, p. 259, 294.
Bembo (Cardinal), his Etna Dialogus, p. 21, 52. His Histortdb Tenetie, p. 62.
Botanic gardens, of the Romans, p. 194. Of the Arabs in Spain, p. 219 ; Note 344;

Of the Mexicans, p. 276 ; Note 429. First European, p. 82. Early estltblisbM

in India by Alfontto de Sousa, p. 277.
Botany of the Arabians, p. 218, 219.
Bradley's discoveries, p. 318, 330.
Brahe, seeTycho.
Bucolic poetry, see Idyl.
Bvflbn, descriptions of nature, p. 6it

Cabot (Sebastian), his voyages and discoveries^ p. 266, S67 ; Note 414. Proposed the
magnetic declination as a means of finding the longitude, p. 282 ; Note 433.

CKsalpinus, p. 277.

Calder(ni, his poetry considered in reference to descriptions of natuml scenery,
p. 60, 61.

CaUimachus, description of Delos, Note 12.

Callisthenes of Olynthus, a disciple of Aristotle, accompanied Alexander's expe-
ditions, p. 159.

Camoens, his natural descriptions in the Lusied^ and those of the variGos states
of the ocean especially extolled, p. 67^59 ; Notes 88—95.

Campani, his object-glasses with whidiCassini discovered four of the satellites
of Saturn, p. 325.

Canal joining the Red Sea and the Nile, p. 170.

Canaries, discovery and early knowledge of the, p. 129—132 ; Notes 175 and 176»

Cardanus, his ** physical problems," Note 409. Experiments on the increase of
weight in metals during oxidation, p. 343, 344.

Carthage, its position near the limits of the Tyrrhenian and Syrtic basins^ p. 118.
Inferior to the Grecian colonies in intellectual and artistic cultivation, p. 143.

Caspian, its character as an inland sea first recognised by Herodotus,andafterwards
lost sight of or denied until the time of Ptolemy, p. 141, 191, 192 ; Note 200.

Cassini (Dominic), discovered four of the satellites of Saturn, p. 325. Recognised
the true relations in space of the zodiacal light, p. 326.

VOL. II. 2 K

CXXX niBEX.

Curitwldei, dlieoMiwi ntetlTs to the, Note 1«9.

Caacafu, p. 140 ; Note 198. L«iisutgee of the, Vc/bd Ml.

Celtic poetry, p. M, 37.

Chaldesn aatnmomy, p. Itt ; Notes 947, 348.

CbartB, hiBtorically memorable. PlanuphereofSannto, p. 356; Note 398. 1^

. gmno'B chart of 1367, showing the Azores, p. 258. Toscanelli*s Carta de Ha-

rear oaed by Columbus, p. 263, Note 410. Recently discovered chartg of

Juan de la Cosa, Notes 411, 457. Variation chart of Alonso de Santa Crux i '

1530, p. 982.

Chateaubriand, his descriptions of nature, p. 63, 66.

Chemistry, its prog^ress under the Roman empire, p. 193, 194 ; Note 338. Of th
Arabians and Indians, p. 319—331 ; Notes 345—347. Commencemeat f
pneumatic chemistry in the 17th century, p. 342—346 *, Note 530.

Chexy's translation of the Indian Mc^hadnta, p. 40.

Chilijbrey disQOTered the xodiacal li^ht, p. 326.

Qiinese parks and gardens, and extracts from Chinese wrifera on the subject, p.
96—99. A Chinese military expedition advances in the time of Vespasian to
the shores of the Caspian, p. 185. Roman ambassadors sent to the Chinese
court, p. 186. Early knowledge of the compass, p. 190, 356, 257: andof tfa
, magnetic declination^ p. 280.

Chivalrous poetry of the middle sges in reference to nature, p. 84, 35.

Christians, descriptions of natural scenery by the early Greek, p. 26, 29.

Christianity, its influence gave a new impulse to the love of nature, p. 24, 23, S6
Productive of the recognition and feeling of the imity of mankind, p. 1991, VO

Chrysostom. eloquent admiration of nature, p. 29.

Cicero, his praises of Aristotle, and flne passage of that writer preserved by him,
p. 14, 15 ; Notes 30, 31. His love of nature and descriptions of natonl
scenery, p. 17, 18. Criticism on Lucretius, Note 23.

Cimento (Academia del). Systematic thermometric observations, p. 835. Isves-
tigated the action of radiant heat,p. 336. Made the first hygrometers, p. 338,339.

Civilisation, influenced by climate, vicinity of the sea, configuration of cotfts,
lai^e rivers, geological features, and other geographical relations, p. US, U(«
120, 121 . Peculiar character of that of Egypt, p. 1 23, 124.

Climate, influence of different climates on the appreciation and poetic description
of natural scenery, p. 31, 37, 38, 41, 48 On civilisation, p. 115, 116. Ob
astronomy, p. 221, 223.

Colsus of Samos, his navigation beyond the Pillara of Hercules, p. 107, 146—1^

Colchis, p. 140, 141 ; Notes 199—301. See Argonauts.

Colonna (Vittoria), quotation from, p. 61 ; Note 82.

Columbus, descriptions of scenery, p. 53, 54—56. His attention to all nstaitl
phenomena and frequent remarkably correct untaught apprehension of their
true characters* p. 56, 366 ; Notes 412, 436, 438. His visit to Iceland, p. 340 ;
Note 374. His discovery of America, p. 340—300. His constant persoasion that
the lands discovered by him were a part of Asia, p. 341, 366, 367 ; Notes 375,
415. Question respecting his knowledge of the travels of Marco Polo, p. 25(,
355. Influence of Toscanelli and his chart on Columbus, p. 363, Note 410^ snd
that of Pinzon in inducing the slteration in his courae which brought him to
Goanahani instead of to more northern latitudes, with the vastness of the
consequences which have flowed therefrom, p. 263, 264. His belief respecting
the relative distances from Spain to China by the east and by the west, and

INBEX. .CXXtl

its influence upon his views and proceeding's, p. 909, 270 ; Note 421. Letter
from Columbus describing^ the ''line of no variation of the magnetic needle'*
in the Atlantic Ocean, the tract of ocean covered by the Gulf weed, and the
cooler temperature or inflection of the isothermal lines, p. 278, 279. Impor-
tance attached by him to this region, raya, or line, on which the " papal line
of demarcation" was founded, p. 279, 280. Columbus was the first discoverer
of a line without magnetic variation, and proposer of the method of deter-
mining longitude from the magnetic variation, p. 280, 281. Observed and re-
cognised the equatorial oceanic current, p. 286. Experienced the effect of the
Gulf stream, p. 286. Observed the Mar de Sargasso or Gulf weed, p. 287.
His remarks on the importance of nautical astronomy, p. 296. Immeasura-
ble importance of the chain of events of which his adventurous enterprise
formed the first link, p. 29a

CSommerce, of the Phoenicians, p. 128, 129, 132, 133 ; of the Tyrians and Israelites,
p. 133, 134. Under the Seleucidse and the Ptolemies, p. 167—169. Of the Ara-
bians, p. 206, 206.

Compass early known and employed by the Chinese, while the Romans and the
Greeks were ignorant of its use, p. 190, 256, 257. Known in Eiirope in or be-
fore the 12th century, p. 256, 257 ; Notes 399, 432. Its early influence in
promoting and extending navigation, p. 258.. First variation compass con-
structed before 1525, Note 433.

Conquista, period of the; mixed character and motives of the Conquistadores, p.
272, 298.

Copernicus, the true order of the universe discovered by him about the time of
the death of Columbus, p. 299, 303. The work embodying it completed and
published only a short time before his own decease, p. 304. Firmness with
which he believed, and confidence and independence with which he announced,
the reality of his view of the universe, and the contrary assertion discussed and
rejected, 305—307. His knowledge of the opinions of the ancients respecting
the structure of the universe, p. 309, 310. His family and country, Note 461.

Cosmos, science of the, and its history distinguished from separate sciences or
branches of science and their history, p. 101, 102.

Cross, the constellation of the Southern, first received its name in the 16th cen-
tury; previous notice in Dante's celebrated lines, p. 291, 292. When visible
in our latitudes, p. 293.

Cruz— Alonzo de Santa, constructed the first general chart of the variations of
the compass, p. 282 ; Note 433.

Cuss (Cardinal Nicolaus de) maintained the earth's movement round the sun m
century before Copernicus, p. 106. His independence, and original views*
p. 245, 258 ; Note 403. His fancies, p. 321.

Cavier, discussions respecting the zoological writings of Aristotle, Notes 234, 235,
237. His praise of Galen, p. 182 ; and of the Emperor Frederic II. Note 381.

Dante, p. 60, 61 ; Notes 78— «1. On the constellation of the Southern Cross,

p. 292 ; Note 8. Discussion respecting his " quattro stelle, *' Note 449.
Darwin (Charles), p. ^0 ; Note 103.
Delille, his style of versihed description disapproved, p. 71«
Diamagnetism, p. 332.
Diathermism, p. 336.
Didactic poetry, p. 12, 21.
Diophantus, p. 182 ; Note 284.

cixxn ofOKS*

iMotMridMydflMripliomorplaBtf ^, p.in. flu—kil ejqici'l«qBti,p.lHIH.

Bi>rroE,Note6UMf.

Hfjpt, chronological epochs of Us faiitory, p. lis, 1», lats Note m. ho^

character ofitodviliMtion, p. 119,194. Conqnosta md violom «( IMMei

Mtamoim, p. 138, IM. Egyptian UTigatiOQ, p. IM. laAwooaofttetteiS'

lioii of Greek hired troops and Groek oomnMroe in Jjme Ssyvtr{k.i&

Adiraatagca of its feographical position inr oammeioe, p. HI, iiS.
Ek»ao, Sebastian de, slier the death of MagwHan, oonplotedthaintdicsvBin'

gation of the globe, and armorial bearings gnsytod to him in ocmnmBOlaM

thereof, p. 370.
Blactridtyiconnection of electric action irith vagnetiani. raoogniacdbf imn

Gilbert, p. 831, 389, 840 ; Note 538. Great tbongii intfferaptadadnManitke

knowledge of dectridty, p^ 380— 841*
BDIptidty of Jopiter and of the Barth, p. 880; Note H%
Empedocles, Us Poem of Nature, p. 9.
Eimtoffllienes, his geography, p. 174. MeasusssMBt •£ as mpo of tbe noiAi

175, Note 370. ^ RfmarVs on the conflgaratioii of the awrthegnpsi*offt»»^

Note 158.
Bfcilla, Don AJonao de, his Araacana, p.ilO; Note 96.
Essenes, reference to the anchoritic life of the Jewish, Note 45.
Ethnology, matarials fertfae compariaaaof diffBrentivoes/tankhedby AJeinto^

campaigns, bnt the comparative study of languages not foUowel bf tke

ancients, p. 160, 161.
Stroscsns, their cfasracter, inioeiioe, and study of natme in conneetios*il'

augury and dirination, p. 184» 18S.; Notea 186—188.
SocUd, p. 177.
Boripides, description of Messenia, p. 11 ; Note 18. Of Cllthanui, end of *s

rise in the DdpUc TsUey, Note IS.
Bxotic, cnltore of exotic plants, p. 99^*95.
Sxperimeot, as distingaiahed from observation, commenoed liy Ptoieniy, f ^*

193. Pursued by the Arabisns, p. 318.
Byck, the landscspe osintings of Habert and John van Byidc, p. 78, 79i

Esbridus (Joan), his discovery of the solar spots, p. 319, 830.

Abridns (David), father of Jtdu), obsjarvM U» vazying brightness of s >|tf i"

Cetus, p. 336,837*
Fsiaday, diamagnetiam, p. 383.

Fermat regarded as the inventor of the infinitesimal calcnhu, p. 83S$ N(itei9^
Fins, Finnish songs, and a recently-discovered ancient Finnish£pic poeOi J^0>^
Firdosi's Sbahnameh, p. 41. Quotation, from. Note 139.
Forster (George), his descriptions of the Islands of thePacific,.])u 08, 79( 71* ^

influence on the author, p. 6.
Fortunate Islands, of the Greeks, p. ISO.
Frederic, Bmperor flrederic II. his love of knowledge and losteHprtsi^f'^

versity of Bologna, Note 338. His advances in oatuifd histonr* aiul CBifi^

praise of him. Note 891.
Freytag, remarks on Arabian poetry, p. 48.
Frislanda, Island of, mentioned by Ck)lumbns, Note 374.

Galen of Peigamos, his merits, and Carier's praise of him* p. 181, 182, 1|K'

OalileOy bis Ant telescope, p. 315, 816. MeasuKs the height of monntsiiis in tbe
Moon, p. 316 ; Note 483. Discovery of the satellites of Jupiter, p. 316. Pro-
foses to determine lon^twiesr at sea by their occidtations, p. 318. first
imperfect observation of Sstiini's ringf, p. 318,.319. Solar spots, p. 319-^21.
Phases of Venus, p. 321. His just views of atmospheric pressure, which led
to the construction of the barometer, p. 337. His vieir of the trade winds*
.p,d88; Note 533.

Gardens, botanic, p. 83, 919; Note 344. Gardens of Semiramis, p. 95; Note
139. CSlBlese'gardenstp. 96— 99; Notes 134—139. Gardens in Japan, and
generally round Buddhistic edifices, p. 99; Note 140. Adonis gatdeni;
Note 124. Garden of Albertus Magnus' at Cologne, Note 124.

0i^ fittt employnoieBt of the term,, and eavly views, observations, experimeutt;
&c. in respect to gases, p. 342—346.

Geography, discussion on mythical', p. 13a, 1«),- 141, 149 ; Note 154, 204. Of tile
Arabians and other Analac nations, p. 917, 318 ; Notes, 331, 334. Of th»
ancients, p. 141, 147, 174, 187—192; Notes 200, 243^ 290—303, 338. Barly
progress of physical, p. 260, 261. Rapid advance of geographical knowIedg|«$
in the great epoch of the oceanic discoveries, p. 266, 271, and Secti<Hk VI.
generally.

Geology, early geological inquiries, p. 346—351. Commencemente of fossil geo-
logy, p. 346—348. Views of Leibnitz and Hooke, 348, 349.

Germans of the middle ages* their descriptions of natural scenery, p. 32—86 ;
Notes 52—55. Writers of the last century, ibid. p. 66, 67.

Gilbert (William), terrestrial magnetism and electricity, p. 881, 382, 389, 340;
Notes 510, 528.

Gobar, the Arabian " dust-writtng," a system of numeration, Note 359.

Goethe^ hia descriptions of nature, p. 73. Lines on Sacontala, Note €0.

Gold, the countries and sooioesfiom whence it was obtained by the ancients,
p. 132—134, 141, 142.

Greece, peculiar charm of Grecian sceneny, p. 10, 138. The deeply-indented
coast line which contributes- to that charm, favourable to early navigation and
intercourse with strangers, p^ 138.

Greeks, the ancient, tiieir descriptions of natural scenes and objects^ p. 0—15 ;
Notes 4—21. The Christian Greeks, ibid. p. 26^29; Notes 45^50. Land-
scape painting of the Greeks, p. 75, 76; Notes 107, 108. General notice
of the character andinfllience of the Greeks in extending, the physical know-
ledge of the Universe prevk>us to the expeditions of Alexander, p.- 137—148.
Chu-acter of the different races of which the ancient Greeks were composecl,
and its influence, p. 138. Greek hired soldiers in other countries, p. 125, 138.
Greek cotonies, p. 139, 140, 143—145. Influence of the restoration of tilt
knowledge of Greek literature in the middle ages, p. 251—283.

Greenland, discovery of, and settlements there, p. 233; Notes 363, 367^ 369, 37({;
Adventurous voyages ftom thence to the North, to Barrow's StraitSj to the
east coast of Greenland, and to the coast of America, p. 284, 235 ; Notes 867;
368. Prohibition of commercial intercourse with Iceland, and gradual decay
of the settlements, 239, 240 ; Note 369.

Gregory of Naziansum, Notes 46—46.

Gregory of Nyssa on the contemplation of nature, p. 28, 29i.

Grimaldi, optical observations, p. 329.

Grimm (Jacob and Wilhelm), account of tbe paetic literature of the Germans in

the middle ages, p. 32—36 ; Notes 55, 56, 59. On Finnish poetry, p. 4S»
Gronping, influence of the well-^ntrasted grouping of exotic plants, p. 9»«-9eL

CXXXir INDEX.

GfovM, aodeBt ▼eneratlon of, p. 96.
Ondnm, an old Genmui poem, p. SS.

QoMike (Otto too), the inventor of the •ir-pomp, Mid the lint who dbienci
electric repoliion, and vtifldaUy ettdted electric li^ht and aoond* p. 9iO,UL

Hate, the Fenian poet, p. 43.

Halley, his theory of terrestrial magnetism, declination charta, ma^etic voyigei)

and ooi^ectun of the connection of the Aaron with magnetism, p. SS2» SS3.

His just views of trade-winds and monsoons, and work on the latter, p^sas,
Hamilton (Terrick), notes to his translation of Antar, p. 48.
Heat, inyestifl^tions on ndiant, p. SS6.

Hebnw poetry of the Scriptures, p. 4S— 48 ; Note 71 . Of modem Jews, Note %
Hellas, Hellenic, &c. See Greece, Greek, Sec.

Hefanont (Van) fint used the term <* gas," his '* gas sylvestre," p. S4S.
Herodotus regards Scythian Asia as part of Eorope, p. 137. KnewtheCaspiinlt

be a closed basin, p. 141.
Herschel (Sir John), sadden brightening of n Argos, p. 8».

(Sir William) discovered two of the satellites of Satnm, p. 335.

Hesiod, his " Works and Days," p. 8 ; Note 7. His TheQgony, p. 8 ; Note & Ha

dislike of maritime life, p. 139.
Hipparchus, p. 175, 176.
History of the physical contemplation of fhe oniverse, or Ibnnation of Die

science of the (}osmoSv 101— 859; Notes 141— 645. Method according to whieli

itistreated,p. 110, 111.
Hodge, painter of tropical scenery, p. 6, 35.
Homer and the Homeric songs, p. 9, 33 ; Notes 10, 11.
Hooke, banning of the andalatory theory of light, and of the observatiffii of !••

tcrferences, p. 329, 330 ; Note 607. View of the trade^winds, p. 338; Noli

522. Geological views, p. 349, 350.
Hot-hoiues, remarks on, p. 94 ; Note 124.
Humboldt (Alexander von), quotations firom his other woriu :— Asie (Entitle,

Note 304 ; Examen Critique, Notes 449, 457 ; Prolegomena, Note 143; Mythic

Geognphy of the Greeks, Note 154; Relation Historique dn Voyage ui

n^oos 6iiainoxiale8, Note 373.
"——^^ (Wilhelm von) compares the poem of Lucretins with an Indian poem,

p. 16. On the connection between poetry, science, philosophy, and history,

Note 33. Discussion on the different and less favourable results in regard Id

intdlectaal cultivation which would have been likely to follow if Garthageliad

conquered Home, and the Anbs C!hristendom, p. 328.
Huygens first discovered a sateliite of Saturn, p. 335. On the nebula in Onaa,

p. 327, 338 ; Note 603. Polarisation of light, p. 328, 329.
Hygrometen, their invention, progressive improvement, and joe, p. 839.
Hyksos, p. 123, 308, 309.
Hyperb<»eans, meteorological mythus of the, p. 141 ; Note 304.

Jacquet, note on llarco Polo, Note 893.

Iceland, its discovery by Naddod, p. 233. Discovery of North America, and settle
ments there and in Greenland from Iceland, p. 333—335. Discussion of tte
hypothesis of Iceland having been first settled, or at least visited, by bishoMS
from America or firom the Feroe islands, p. 337. Visit of Columbus, p^ S40(
Note 374.

Idyle or Idyllic poetry, p. 11.

INDEX. CXXXV

Indian poetic literature in reference to natnre, p. 31, 37-43 ; Notea 58-63. Indian
useofpositionindeterminin^thevalueof numbers, p.l15,3a7; Note359. Early
commercial intercourse with India, and Indian names of the articles of com-
merce which Solomon obtained from Ophir, p. 133; Notes 179, 181, 182, 264.
Early Indian settlers on the east coast of Africa, p. 134. Indian mathema-
ticians, p4 187; Note 289. Indian Algebra, p. 225— S27; Notes 355, 859.
Indian planetary tables, p. 223 ; Note 350. Indian knowledge of the materia
medica and chemistry, p. 214, 220 ; Notes 328, 840, 841, 847. Ancient Indian
geognptky. Note 253.

Indies, indefiniteness of the term, Note 243.

Infinitesimal calculus, p. 302, 823, 351 ; Note 495

Job, descriptions of nature in the book of, p. 46, 47.

Jones (Sir William), remarks on Indian poetry, Note 15, Tnnslation of Sapon
tala. Note 60.

Ionic school of philosophy, p. 105.

lonians, their mental cluuracter, p. 138.

Isabella (Queen) requests Columbus to collect specimens of natural history, p. 27C
Her letter to Columbus, Note 454.

Italian poetry and literature in reference to nature, p. 50, 51, 56.

Tupiter^ discovery of the satellites of, p. 316—318. Controversy respecting the
discovery, Note 484. Galileo's proposal to determine the longitude at sea
by the occultations of the satellites of. Note 488. EUiptidty o^ 350.

Kalidasa (the Indian poet), p. 39, 40, 62; Notes 60 and 62.

Kepler, his praise of Copernicus, p. 306. His discovery of the lavrs which bear his
name, p. 310, 311, 313, 317 ; Note 477* 499. This discovery not appreciated by
his cotemporaries, p. 324,325. His work on the planet Mars, and his Har-
monicas Mundi, p. 308, 314 ; Note 499. Spirited passage from the last-named
work, p. 317. His life, sufferings, and biography, by Freiherr von Breit-
schert. Note 477. His optical investigations, p. 314 ; Note 481. His Stereo-
metria doliorum, p. 323 ; Note 495. His mental character and speculations
pjQll, 323, 324 ; Note 496.

Kien-long, poem of the Chinese Emperor, p. 97, 96.

Klaproth, his valuable researches, and those of Abel Remusat, which have made
known to us the races who, in the east of Asia, gave the first impulse to the wave
of the great migration of nations which at last broke over Europe, p. 186
Note 287.

Landscape painting, p, 74—91, 93, 94 ; among the Greeks and Romans, p. 74—77 ;
Notes, 107— 1 14. From the time of Constantine to the Van Eycks only found
in marginal ornaments of manuscripts, p. 78 ; Note 116. The Van Eycks, p.
78,79. Early Italian and German painters, p. 79; Notes 118, 122. Giorgione,
Titian, A. Caracci, Domenichino, Claude Lorraine, ' Ruysdael, Gaspar and
Nicolas Poussin, Everdingen, Hobbima, Cuyp, and Rubens, p. 79— Si,
86,87; Note 121. New field opened to, by the great geographical dis-
coveries of the 16th century, p. 82. Views of tropical scenery taken on
the spot by Franz Post and by Eckhcut, p. 82, 83; Note 124. By some later
artists named, p. 83. Future more numerous and grander examples antici-
pated, p. 83—89. Characteristic aspect of difierent zones and countries may
be conveyed by, 88—90.

Undscape gardening, p. 95. Rules for itrecommended by a Chinese writer, p. 97.

CMJ^m INDISX.

Ln^nafeir tiMir pl«ee ttidiafliMncQ in the history of the phyiical eoetemplitie
of the nnivene, p. 107—109. Bthaotosicel etadies, end philoeopbical inrati-
gatioiis nqwcting buiffiuge, rare in entiqaity ; their ten and dight he^
ninfs, p. Ul» 161 ; Notes SOI, Md. InHaence of the wide exteiwioB of al»
gfugt in uniting nations, noticed hy Pliny, p. 184 ; Note S85.

Las Caaa, hit manuicript history recently d»covered» nnd hia accoaatioesagnii
Amerifro Veapocd discussed, Note 467.

Lassen, his work on Indian antiquity, and remarka on Indian poetry in refrace
to nature, p. S7, 88.

Leibnits, his Protogxa, p. S40.

Lepdns, notices of Egryptian chnmologry by,p. 192, ISS ; mcwt eonthcncxteBiiaiif
the monuments of Ramses Miamoun, p. IM, Note 161 ; on the syllabic al^
bet, p. 127.

lieu-tachen, a Chinese writer on the art of landscape g^nrdeningf, p. 97.

lister, Martin, early correct views and advances in foaai] geology, p. S«8.

hog ftv measuring a ship's way, date of itaflrat introduction, p. 959; NoteMi

Longitnde, method of determining the, at sea, and atimulua givea thereto 17<^
desire to determine the place of the P^pal line of demarcation betuca tk
Spanish and Portoflfuese claims ; attempts to employ the magnetic dediH-
tion and inclination for the attainment of this object, p. 281, S2; Gift*
proposes the oocnltations of the satellites of Jupiter, p. 818 } Note 486.

Longus, pastoral romances, p. 14 ; Note 16.

Locan, description of a dmidical forest, p. 20.

Lodlius, poem on Etna, p. 90; Note S4.

Lncietins, p. 16« 17.

Lodins a Roman landacape painter, p. 76.

Lolly, Raymond, his Arte de Navegar, p. 258, 259.

Lnsiad of Camoens, p. 57--59.

Lyktonia, geographical mythua of, p. 119.

Macpherson's Oasian, p. 46.

Madeira, early knowledge of, p. 181.

Magnetic line of no variation first observed by Colmnbns, p. 998--981.

Magnetism, terrestrial, its advances during the period of the oceanic disoofoii^

p. 278-283; Notes, 432, 434. 6ttbert*s investigations and writings, p.S»>

182. HaUey's theory, charts, and expeditions, p. 832,> 883. Modern sstiRtr

expeditions for the advance of the knowledge of, and desire expressed ir

ftrther researches on a great scale, p. 333—335; what is accomplisbed «i^

accomplishing, Note 514 Mm (Editor's additional Note.)
Magellan, voyage to the Pacific, p. 270.
Magellanic clouds, first knowledge of the, by Europeans, p. 289; known to the

Arabians, p. 289) 290.
Mahabharata, (Indian poem) p. 16, 88.

MandeviUe, Sir John, his travels, and their infinence in the middle ages, pM^
Marius, Simon, his discovery of Jupiter's satellites, contemporaneously wifiind

independently of Galileo, p. 816 ; Note 484. Described the nebula in /^Aio-

meda, p. 827.
Martianus Mineos of Madanra, an ancient writer on astronomy much regsrdedby

Oopemicos, pr 809.
Materia medica, knowledge and study of the, by the Anbisns and IndiaUiPil^

918,219. N0tea828»8tl,a4S.

INDBX. CXXXVli

MathematiclaiM, QreethEgypOaik, p. 177 ; andent Indian^ p. 19!, Note 889 ;

modern, p. 801.
Maarice, Frincei of Nassau, views of tropical scenery by artists taken by him to

Brazil, p. 82, 83.
Mayow, his view of pneumatic chemistry as connected with respiration, p» 344,915.
Mediterranean taken as a point of departure, aiul it« geographical relations and
configuration described in reference to the gradual extension of the physical
knowledge of the universe, p. 117—120, 136 ; its subdivision into three subor-
dinate basins^ p.- 1 17 ; Note 151 .
Megasthenes, correctness of many accounts giv^i by bim whicb were disbelieved

in antiquity. Note 219.
Meghaduta or ** cloud messenger," Indian poem, 89, .40.
Meleager, vernal idyl, p. 13 ; Note 11.

Menageries, Ilgyptian, under the Ptolemies, p. 171 ; Mexican, Note 4S0'
Microscope, discovery of the opmpound, and its influence on the science of the

C!osmos, p. 102, 315.
Migration of nations commencing in the East, p. 186.
Milton, p. 62.

Minnesingers, their allusions to natural scenery, p. 82.
Minucius Felix, an early Christian vrriter, p. 26.
Moguls, their advance to Cracow and liegnitz, an^ embassies and missionaries

sent to them, p. 253— 255 ; Note 313.
Monsoons, knowledge of, p. 169, Note 261 ; fietvouzable to navigation and inter-
course between different countries, p. 121, 169, 170.
Mosella, an ancient descriptive pQem,.p. 21 ; Note 85.
Muller, Edward, on Greek poetry in reference to nature. Note 4.

Johannes, on zoological questions. Note 239.

Otfiried, his remarks on the different feeling with which the ancients and

the moderns r^parded landscape painting, p. 77 ; his views respectij^g the
mythical geography of the ancients. Note 151.

Naddod, his discovery of Iceland, p. 233.

Nature, incitements to tiie study of, p. 8—100 ; tinree classes distinguished— t. e.
1. Poetic descriptions of nature, p. 6—73, Notes 4^105 ; 2. Landscape paint-
ing, p. 74—91, Notes 106—1^ ; 8. Ooitivation of -exoticplants, 92— 100-, Notes
127—140.

rliebQle, early observations of Marius«nd Huygens, p. 827, S28.

Nechos or Neku II., discussion on the reality of the circumnavigation of Africa

'■ under, p. 105 ; Nete-163.

Nestorians, influence on Arabian knowledge, p. 211, 912.

Mebdimgen, few illusions to natural scenery in the Niebelungen lied, p. 88.

Newfon, theory of gravitation, p. 318, 851 ; vitreous electricity, p. 841 ; optical
discoveries, p. 830 ; compression of Jupiter and of the Earth at the poles,
<p.850.

Nominalists, influence of ^e school of Hhe, in 1Sie«midAe ages, "p, 945.

Nonnus of Fanopolis, his poetry, p. 12, 13.

Qwam, William of, p. 245.

Oceanic discoveries, epoch of the greait, p. 2fl0--800 ; Notes 861-^57.
Qphir, voyages of the ships of Solomon and Hinm to ; and its docality discnaaed,
p..LSa, 183 ; Notes 179—183.

CXXXYIU INDEX.

0|iticf»Ptolai7*ftciperi]nentsiii»p. IM,19S; Note S88. Albazen on the n6»
tioa of nyt, p. 391. Invettigatioos in the aevaiteeiitli and snooeediiv caiii>
nM»p.aB-«Ot NotetM«~M7.

Onhm, p. 86,87; Note 57.

Oridfp. 19.80; Note 80.

OxifUtion of metals, p. 843— S44 ; Nole 580.

Ozysen, Ant obwnration of the gas, and first dlMorery of its properties, p. 349i

Iteific Ocean, fint heard of hy Cohiinbas, p. 267, 268. Importance of iti A-
coveiy towards meteorological as well as ipeogrraphical knowledge, p. ar?B,»
First seen by Balboa, and navigated by Magellan, with sabseqnent diicim>
ries, p. 370, 271. 378 ; Notes 418, 438, 433. 425.

Painting, Umdscape, p. 74—91 ; Notes 107—135.

Panoramas, suggestions for rendering them a highly etteetire means of ft-
fusing and increasing a knowledge and love of the beauties of creation in tk
different regions of the Earth, p. 90, 91.

Fsradise Lost, p. 63.

Parks and gardens of different conntries, p. 95—99 ; Notes 128—189.

Pendulum first used to measure time by the Arab, Ebn Junis, p. 2S1 ; Kok
849. Experiments with the seconds, p. 850 ; Notes 541, 542.

Persian poetry in reference to nature, p. 37, 40—42 ; Notes 66, 67. Faiks of th
Persian kings, p. 95. Ancient Persian empire, and its influence, p. 137. Sip-
posed Persian knowledge of lightning conductors. Note 186.

Petrarch, p. 51 ; Note 83.

Phlogiston, doctrine of, or phlogistic theory, p. 843, 844 ; Note S31.

Phoenicians, their place among the early civilized nations of the globe, aid
their extensive navigation, commerce, and influence, p. 125- 1S3, Iti.
Their circumnavigation of AfKca under the Egyptian monarch, Nechos H.,
p. 135 ; Notes 163, 173. Their manufactures, p. 138. Their colonies, p. I3f.
139, 143, 145 ; Note 173. Their weights, measures, and money, p. 126. Thar
influence in advancing and difftising arithmetical, nautical, and astnwooial
knowledge, and above all in communicating to European nati<»s, uA
especially to the Greeks, the use of alphabetical signs, p. 136 — 138. Km*-
ledge of usefU chemical prepaiations derived fitom them, p. 115.

Phrygians, p. 136.

Pierre, Bernardinde St» p. 68. His beautiftd descriptions of tropical soesoyi
p. 65, 66.

Pigafetta, his supposed mention of the log, p. 359; Note 405. Notice of tki
Southern heavens, p. 288; Note 446.

Pinzon, Martin Alonso, prevailed on Colombus to alter his course to the sontbwvd,
and the consequences of this change, p. 363, 264.

Plato, descriptions of nature, p. 17. Of the Mediterranean, p. 117. Sndarof
influence, in different ages, of the Platonic philosophy, together with itiiittr
modifications, p. 178, 174, 344 ; Notes 366^ 377, 378

Flayfiair,p. 63.

Pliny the elder, his Historia Naturalis, p. 33, 195—198 ; Note 285.

—the younger, his villas, and natural descriptions contained in his letters, p. 0*
34 ; Note 38. Praise of his uncle's work, p. 197.

P^buisation of light, p. 338, 329. Place which the discovery of chrosiilic
polarisation holds in the history of the Science of tbe Cosmos, p. lOil.

Porsenna Lars, story of his tomb, Note 186.

IKBEX.

CXXXIX

" Fosition-valne*' in nnmeratioiii discussioDS as to the place or places, and as to
the manner in which it originated, p. 164, 227 ; Note 359.

Polo, Marco, bis travels, and their influence, p. 25i, 256 ; Notes 808-^896.

Pompeii, remains of landscape paintings found in, p. 77.

Poussin, Gaspnr and Nicolas, p. 81, 86, 87.

Psalms, descriptions of nature in the, p. 45, 46.

Ptolemseus, Claudius, his geography, p. 18»-193y 968, 260. His optical experi-
ments, p. 182, 193 ; Note 283.

Ptolemies, epoch of the sovereignty of the, in Egypt, audits inifaience,p. 166^177$
Notes 255-276.

^notations from—

Anghiera, p. 262 ; Note 408.

An old Anglo-Saxon poem. Note 55.

Arago, Note 484.

Arisfotle, p. 14, 15 (extract preserved

by Cicero), 150, 151, 160.
Banros, p. 242.
Basil, p. 26, 27.
Boiardo, Note 82.
Brewster, Notes 496, 60S.
Calderon, p. 61.
Camoens, p. 58.
Cardanus, Note 409.
Chrysostom, p. 29.
Cicero, p. 18 ; Note 309.
Claudlan, p. 199.
Colonna (Vittoria), Note 82.
Colon Fernando, Note 438.
Columbus, p. 55, 56, 278, 296; Note

410.
Copernicus, p. 306, 307; Notes 467,

465, 466.
Ctesias, Note 186.
Dante, Notes 3, 78— 81»
Ercilla, Note 96.
Buripides, p. 11.
Firdosi, Note 129.
Frederic II. (Emperor), Note 33S
Galileo, Notes 484, 523.
Galle, Note 450, 474.
Gassendi, Notes 464, 474.
Gilbert (William), Notes 432, 628.
Goethe, p. 73 ; Note 60.
Goldstucker (Theodor), Note 62.
Gregory of Nyssa, p. 28, 29.
Giimm(Jacob andWilhelm),p. 32,36.
Gndrun, poem of, p. 33.
Homer, p. 9.

Humboldt (Alexander von)—

Asie Centrale, Note 204.

Examen Critique, Notes 449, 457.

Prolegomena, Note 143.

Mythic Geography of the Greeks,
Note 154.

Voyage aux Regions ^quinoxiales.
Note 373.
■ (Wilhelm von), p. 228.

Huygens, Note 503.
Kepler, p. 317 ; Note 477.
Jacquet, Note 393.
Ideler, p. 162 ; Note 248.
Job (book of), p. 47.
Isabella (Queen), letter to Columbvf ,

Note 454.
Laplace, Note 495.
Las CTasas, Note 457.
Lassen, p. 37, 38 ; Note 231.
Lepsius, p. 122, 123, 127 ; Note 146.
Lieu-tscheu (Chinese writer), p. 97.
Pliuy the elder, p. 196 j Note 231,

285
Miiller (OtflriLed), p. 77 ; Note 164.
Osiander, Note 464.
Pindar, p. 10.
Plato, p. 117; Note 146.
Pliny the elder, p. 196; Notes 231, 235.

younger, p. 197; Note 38.

Psalms, p. 45, 46.

Schiller, p. 6.

Seneca, Notes 36, 37, 211.

Simplicius, Note 467.

Sophocles, p. 11.

Spanish romantic ballads. Note 97.'

Strabo, p. 128, 136, 188, 189 ; Note l53.

Tasso, p. 241.

0X1 DIBflX.

(IndiwiiMaiX 11.88, 19; NotwflO^es.
BaniMt Miamoan or BmataiM, hit expeditions, ▼ictoiies, and ooBiUBeMl^ p. Itt-

195 ; Note in.
BMliits. inflaence of their school in the middle aires, p. S45, 946.
Bad Sest its importance to commerce and intdmational iuteroomrae, p. UO, Ifl,

168. Belongs to a system of tnuavene geological fiasnres of gnat pmi

.Inportaaee la respect to aommeree and theintercoona of natioas, p. M^ Ifi;

Note 152.
JMahait Jocha, p. 86.

Begiomontanus, his astronomicil tables, p. 258.
Bemasat, AbeL See Klaproth.
Baf (Jean) first stated, Arom experiment, that the increaae of imight in Midi

daring calcination was drawn from the air, p. 344 ; Note 530.
Bitnsanhara (Indian poem), p. 62.
Bomances, pastoral romances of Longns, p. 14. Of Spaniah and Italian mitaii

p. 66. Of German writers, p. 66, 67.
Bomaas, the ancient, their descriptions of natural scenery, p. 15— 24; Ntts

23—40. Infiuenceoftheirempire, p.178— 200; Notes 277— 311. Wideotat

of the empire, and diversity of climates, p. 180, 181 ; Note 279. ndr

paintings (landscapes), p. 76, 77; Notes 113, 114.
Booasean (Jean-Jacqne>), p. 63, 65.
Bnbens, his hunting pieces and lanrtwcuHW, p. 81, 82.
Babmqnis, p. 253, 254 ; Note 392.
Boysdad, p. 81, 86, 87.

Saoontala (the Indian dramatic poem of)* P* S9, 76.

Sadi the Persian poet, p. 42.

Sanscrit names of different productions and articles of commerce. Notes 143| A

231,297.
Satellites. See Jupiter and Saturn.
SaMm, discovery of its ring and satellites, p. 318, 319, 325.
SchiUer, remarks on the differences observable in the descriptioDS of v/tai

scenes and objects by the anci^t Greeks and by modem writers, p. 4
Schnaaaeoa the manner in which the ancient Greeks referred all phyucal F^^^

nomena to man, p. 7 ; Note 5.
Scotos, Duns, p. 245.
Scythia, opinions of Herodotus in regard to its g^graphical character, ^IS?-

Traffic with the Greeks, p. 141, 142. Descent and habitation of Mof^
.. Scythian tribes, Notes 202—204.
Seasons, Indian poem of the, or Bitiuwnhara, p. 39, 62. Thomson's Seaaai)

p. 62,63.
8ee-ma-kaang (a Chinese statesman), his poem of " The Garden," p. 98, 98.
Seleacos the Babylonian, the first who taught that the Sun, and not the Esrtk, it

the centre of the planetary system, p. 105.
Seneca, reference to a deluge;. Note 37*
flihakspeare, p. 61, 62.

Sitius Italicus, notices the scenery of the Alps, but without pn&Mi, p.^
Solomon, voyages to Ophir, p. 133.
Sophocles, beaatifbl descriptions of natoie, p. 11»

iKpisx. cbci

Snow-line, fbe elevBtion of the, recognised as a Ainctioii of the latifeade, p, asi

Note 439.
Spanish poetry and literature considered in referenoe to desoiptions of natore^

p. 39--6I ; Notes 96—99.
Stan, apiMirition of new, in the latter part of the I6th and heginnuns of the I7tht

centuries, p. 32S— 333. Yariationaia the brightneaa of patticular stars, p« 3aS^

826,327; Note 603.
Steno (Nicolaus), early advances in greolOfy, p. ZiS, Zifi
Strabo, on the yaried coast line of Soothem Eiorope^p, 115 ;. oa the Icnowledge and

skill of the Sidonians, p. 138. On the lymaa towma of the west coast of AAriea,

p. 129. On temples near the Persian Gulf, p. 13B. Oik the ancient Iberian

nations, p. 136. On his f^reat work on geography and geelogical views,

p. 187—189.
Saan-pan, Indian reckoning apparatus, p. 937 ; Not&859(

Tacitns, p. 21, 33.

Tttsso, p. 56. Quotation from, in praise of Celnmhos^ pk Ml-.

Telescope, history of the discovery of the, 314—816 ; Note 482. Flaca whkh^s

discovery holds in the history of the Ck>smos, p. 102, 109, 304, 35^
Theocritus, p. 12.
Tbeophrastus, p. 158, 159, 181.

< Thermometer, invention of the, p. 885 ; Note 515. Its importance towards the
general knowle4ge of nature, p. 335, 336. Early thermometric obsorvationa
on a systematic plan of the Accademia del Cimento, p. 335 ; Notes 516— 6iy.
Differential, p. 338 ; Note 524.
' Thier-epos or epos of animals, p. 36.
Thomson's Seasons, p. 62, 63.
TibuUus, p. 20.
Tides of the ocean, first known to the Greeks at Gadeira, p. 148. Application of

mathematical analysis to the laws of, p. 352.
Tieck, Ludwig, comments on descriptions in Calderon and other Spanish writers,
p. 60. On Shakespeare's description of Dover Cliff, and on the manner in
which he often conveys impressions of natural scenes without describing
them, p. 61, 62.
Time-piece, a very curious, sent to Charlemagne fhnn Persia, and another from

Egypt to Frederic II., Note 349.
Tin, ancient trade in, p. 128 ; Note 169.
Titian, on the landscape portion of some of Ms pictures, and of one especially,

p. 79, 80.
Torricelli, pupil of Galileo, and inventor of the barometer, p. 337.
Toscanelli, Paolo, his famous chart, and his connection with and influence on

Columbus, p. 263, 269 and 270 ; Notes 410, 420.
Travellers, comparison between the writings of modem, and those of the middle

ages, p. 67—69.
Tropics, enthusiastic description of the beauty of tropical scenery, p. 83, 84, 88,
93. Cultivation of tropical plants, p. 92—95. Views of tropical scenery
hitherto painted, p. 82, 83 ; Note 124. More beautiftil ones hop<kL for, 83—69.
Turdetani and Turduli, p. 136.
Tuscans : see Etruscan.
Tycho Brahe, p. 106, SiO, 312, 318.

Cxlii INDEX.

TyrlAii, towM on the west coMt of Africa, p. 199. Conjoint TjriMn and Hebmi
commercial expeditions aent by Solomon and Hinun« p. 13S.

Van Byck, landacipet of Hubert and John, p^ 78, 79.

Vedas, the Indian Vedaa, or ucred writings, p. 38, 39 $ Note 69.

Venns, phases of, p. 831.

Vespncci, descriptions of the scenery of the coast of Brazil, p. 51. Believed naty
his death that the lands he had seen in the New World were a part of tke
Continent of Asia, >. 341. His descriptions ^of the beauty of the sontlien
constellations, p. 388. Ui\taftly accused of having' used unworthy arts fortke
purpose of attaching his name to the New Continent instead of that of
Columbus, a result attributable to a concurrence of accidental circnmstanoet,
p. 399; Note 457.

Villas, Roman, p. 33, 33 ; Note 88.

ViUemain, on the Greek novels or romances of Longns, p. 14 ; Note l& On the
eloquence of Christian writers in the fourth century. Note 46.

Vind, Leonardo da, his sound views of the foundations of physical knovlnlgf >
p. 385, Note 440: on Zoology, p. 846. His opinion regarding theformttioa
of valleys, p. 847.

VirgU,p. 18,19; Note 38.

Water-spout, description by Camoens in the Lusiad, p. 58 ; Note 91.
Whewell, "inductive table'' of astronomy, Note 475.

Winds, law of the rotation of the, and theory of the trade, p. 837, SS ; NaO
622—524.

Zodiacal light, diacoyery of the, p. 836,

END OF VOL. U.

VILSON AND OGILVY, 57, SKINNER STRBBT, LONOOIF.

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